Court Opinion

ID: 9806368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 18:59:27.498177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:03:28.377927
License: Public Domain

Cohen, J.,
dissents and votes to reverse the judgment, on the law and as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, and to order a new trial, with the following memorandum: While my colleagues in the majority conclude that the prosecutor’s summation remarks constituted fair comment on the evidence, were responsive to arguments and theories presented in defense counsel’s summation, or were permissible rhetorical comment, I disagree.
On November 15, 2009, in Staten Island, Dante McKie was driving a white Lexus, in which Kamik Sears was riding in the front passenger seat and Andre Scott was riding in the back seat. Another vehicle pulled up along the driver’s side of the Lexus and shots were fired, injuring McKie and killing Sears. McKie then drove to his home at 44 Yale Street, Staten Island, leaving Sears in the car. When the police arrived, they found Sears’s body in the car, and thereafter had McKie transported to a nearby hospital. Scott spoke with the investigating detective, Girolamo Campione, at 44 Yale Street, and told him that he did not see the shooter, explaining that, just as he saw the gun, he ducked down into the car and then heard the shots. When Detective Campione initially interviewed McKie in the hospital at approximately 2:20 a.m. on November 16, 2009, a “coherent” McKie told him that he did not see the shooter, and did not see the car from which the shots were fired. During these early morning hours, a warrant was obtained to search McKie’s apartment at 44 Yale Street, from which drugs were recovered. At approximately 3:00 a.m., another detective received a tip from an unknown confidential informant identifying both the defendant and Kyree Henderson as individuals of interest in connection with the shooting.
Detective Campione thereafter prepared two photo arrays, one including a photograph of the defendant, and one including *826a photograph of Henderson. At approximately 6:00 a.m. on November 16, 2009, Detective Campione returned to the hospital, after recovering the drugs from McKie’s apartment, to see if McKie could identify the shooter, even though McKie had previously stated that he did not see the shooter. Detective Campione testified at trial that McKie then was able to identify the defendant from one of the arrays as “the one that did the shooting,” and that McKie, while recognizing Henderson, told Detective Campione that Henderson “wasn’t there.”
Two days after the shooting, the murder weapon was recovered from Henderson’s dead body, and DNA was recovered from the weapon. The major portion of the genetic material in the DNA samples that were recovered belonged to Henderson, and there were other sources of lesser amounts of DNA that could not be identified or determined. During the trial, the prosecutor and defense counsel stipulated to the fact that DNA samples containing a mixture of DNA sources were found on the murder weapon, but that only the DNA of Henderson — the major contributor to the DNA — could be identified.
In summing up to the jury, a prosecutor “must stay within the four corners of the evidence and avoid irrelevant and inflammatory comments which have a tendency to prejudice the jury against the accused” (People v Spann, 82 AD3d 1013, 1015 [2011] [internal quotation marks omitted], quoting People v Bartolomeo, 126 AD2d 375, 390 [1987]; see People v Ashwal, 39 NY2d 105, 109 [1976]). Thus, a prosecutor “may not refer to matters not in evidence or call upon the jury to draw conclusions which are not fairly inferrable from the evidence” (People v Ashwal, 39 NY2d at 109-110 [citations omitted]).
In the instant matter, the prosecutor, despite the stipulation described above, and without any foundation to support her argument, stated as follows during her summation:
“What about DNA? DNA on the gun? Stipulation it actually went to the lab, it’s recovered from several locations on the gun. The back strap, the trigger, the magazine, all different locations, some of which is Kyree Henderson’s and some of which cannot be determined. Which means that someone else’s DNA is on the gun, but the DNA lab is unable to determine whose it is.
“What I would argue to you is that it’s the murderer’s DNA, the defendant’s DNA. There is nothing contrary to that, number one. And number two, we have evidence that proves to you that he was firing into the vehicle and handling it. Yet Kyree Henderson was obviously the last person that touched it.”
*827Thus, the prosecutor propounded facts not in evidence when she suggested that the defendant’s DNA was found on the murder weapon, when forensic experts made no such finding.
Further, the prosecutor, again without any foundation to support her contention, strongly implied that the defendant, in addition to committing the crimes charged in connection with the instant matter, may have also been responsible for the subsequent death of Henderson. There was simply no evidence to connect the defendant to this uncharged crime (see People v Riback, 13 NY3d 416 [2009]).
To the extent that the defendant’s claims of prosecutorial misconduct and overreach are unpreserved for appellate review, they should nevertheless be reviewed in the exercise of our interest of justice jurisdiction (see CPL 470.15 [6] [a]; People v Spann, 82 AD3d at 1015; People v Cobb, 104 AD2d 656, 658 [1984]).
In my view, the comments made by the prosecutor during summation were so inflammatory and prejudicial as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial (see People v Ashwal, 39 NY2d 105 [1976]; People v Spann, 82 AD3d 1013 [2011]; People v Brown, 256 AD2d 414 [1998]; People v Cobb, 104 AD2d at 658; see also People v Mehmood, 112 AD3d 850 [2013]).
The cumulative effect of these errors cannot be said to be harmless in this case, where the identification of the defendant rested solely upon the testimony of McKie, who, when first interviewed, stated that he neither saw the shooter nor the car from which the shots were fired. It was only after McKie was visited by Detective Campione, and after drugs were recovered from McKie’s apartment on the night of the shooting — for which, notably, McKie was neither arrested nor prosecuted— that McKie was able to identify the defendant as the perpetrator of the crimes charged in this matter. Accordingly, since the evidence of the defendant’s guilt was not overwhelming, the errors cannot be deemed harmless (see People v Crimmins, 36 NY2d 230, 241-242 [1975]).
Nor did the trial court’s jury charge eliminate the prejudicial effect of any prosecutorial misconduct (see generally People v Riback, 13 NY3d 416 [2009]). A trial court’s instruction to a jury to disregard matters improperly brought to their attention cannot “always assure elimination of the harm already occasioned” (People v Calabria, 94 NY2d 519, 523 [2000], quoting People v Carborano, 301 NY 39, 42-43 [1950]).
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent, and would reverse the judgment and order a new trial.