Court Opinion

ID: 9496606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:30:52.469573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:40.833903
License: Public Domain

JOHN M. WALKER, Jr., Chief Judge,
concurring.
I fully concur in Judge Parker’s opinion dismissing, with prejudice, Sweet’s § 2254 petition. I write separately with respect to the merits of Sweet’s claim to highlight New York’s confusing interpretation of its “inconsistent verdicts” statute.
Sweet argues that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel when his trial counsel failed to object to charging the jury with both second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter as inconsistent. Inconsistent counts may not be charged in the conjunctive because it is not possible for a defendant to be guilty of both crimes. See N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 300.40(5); People v. Gallagher, 69 N.Y.2d 525, 516 N.Y.S.2d 174, 508 N.E.2d 909, 909-10 (1987).
Under New York law, “[t]wo counts are ‘inconsistent’ when guilt of the offense charged in one necessarily negates guilt of the offense charged in the other.” N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 300.30(5). “Whether verdicts are repugnant or inconsistent ... is determined by examining the charge to see the essential elements of each count, as described by the trial court, and determining whether the jury’s findings on those elements can be reconciled.” People v. Loughlin, 76 N.Y.2d 804, 559 N.Y.S.2d 962, 559 N.E.2d 656, 657-58 (1990) (citing People v. Tucker, 55 N.Y.2d 1, 447 N.Y.S.2d 132, 431 N.E.2d 617, 620 (1981)).
In Gallagher, the defendant, after consuming alcohol, had shot and killed the victim, and was convicted of intentional murder under N.Y. Penal Law § 125.25[1] (acting “[wjith intent to cause the death of another person”) and of reckless manslaughter under N.Y. Penal Law § 125.15[1] (“recklessly causing] the death of another person”). 516 N.Y.S.2d 174, 508 N.E.2d at 910. The Court of Appeals found that Gallagher’s convictions were inconsistent:
One who acts intentionally in shooting a person to death — that is, with the conscious objective of bringing about that result — cannot at the same time act recklessly — that is, with conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that such a result will occur. The act is either intended or not intended; it cannot simultaneously be both. Thus, where the shooting (the act) and the death (the result) are the same, a defendant cannot be convicted twice for the murder, once for acting “intentionally” and once for acting “recklessly.”
Id. (internal citations omitted). The intentional murder and reckless manslaughter counts, under § 125.25[1] and § 125.15[1] respectively, include elements with two necessarily inconsistent mental states re*144garding the same specific act and result (causing death). The Court of Appeals observed that “[b]ecause the jury found defendant guilty of both intentional and reckless homicide, it is impossible to determine what if anything the jury decided on the issue of defendant’s mental state at the time of the offense.” Id. at 910-11. Applying the principle that the counts are inconsistent when “guilt of one necessarily negates guilt of the other,” id. at 910, the court vacated the convictions on both counts.
Subsequent to Gallagher, New York courts applied that case and the “inconsistent verdicts” statute, N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 300.30[5], in line with the common sense approach taken by Judge Parker’s analysis of actual innocence in the majority opinion. Consistent with the comparison of each count’s elements called for in Tucker and Loughlin, the rule was that, in order for separate counts to be charged in the conjunctive, an element of one count cannot necessarily negate an element of another count. Thus, in People v. Rogers, 166 A.D.2d 23, 569 N.Y.S.2d 946, 947 (1st Dep’t 1991), the Appellate Division held that the defendant’s conviction on two counts of second-degree murder was inconsistent because one count required an “intent to cause the death of another person,” § 125.25[1], while the other count required that the defendant “recklessly engage[d] in conduct which create[d] a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby eause[d] the death of another person.” § 125.25[2], The elements in each count that related to the causing of death contained conflicting mental states, and, therefore, they negated each other.
On the other hand, there is no inconsistency if the defendant acts with different mental states with regard to two different potential or intended results. The obvious example is where the defendant intentionally beats his victim but is indifferent and reckless as to whether the victim dies. Such a defendant may be charged with both the intentional crime of assault and the reckless crime of murder. This is illustrated in People v. Moloi, 135 A.D.2d 576, 521 N.Y.S.2d 794, 796 (2d Dep’t 1987). There, a defendant, who had beaten the victim and thrown a pot of boiling oil at her, was convicted of two counts of first-degree assault: intending to cause serious physical injury, in violation of N.Y. Penal Law § 120.10[1], and acting with a conscious disregard for the risk of death that such conduct created, in violation of N.Y. Penal Law § 120.10[3]. Moloi, 521 N.Y.S.2d at 795. The court compared the elements of the two first-degree assault counts and found that they were consistent. Id. at 796. As the Appellate Division explained,
That a defendant may have committed an act with the intent to seriously injure another person does not rule out the possibility that he may have also unintentionally (and recklessly) created a risk of such person’s death, since not all “serious” injuries are necessarily life threatening. Thus, it is clear that a defendant could hypothetically engage in conduct which intentionally results in serious physical injury, and unintentionally creates a grave risk of death ....
Id. (internal quotations omitted).
The New York legislature has enacted several statutes that proscribe conduct that, in a single act, is at the same time intentional as to one result and reckless as to another. See, e.g., People v. Ruiz, 151 Misc.2d 757, 573 N.Y.S.2d 845, 846-47 (Sup.Ct.1991) (citing N.Y. Penal Law § 120.05[8] and § 125.20[4]). One of the statutes at issue in this case is a paradigmatic example.
Sweet was charged with a particular first-degree manslaughter count, *145§ 125.20[4], that requires proof of both an “intent to cause physical injury” and “recklessly engag[ing] in conduct which creates a grave risk of serious physical injury to [a person less than eleven years old] and thereby causes the death of such person.” Within § 125.20[4] itself, the legislature proscribed conduct involving two different mental states with regard to different results: (1) an intent to injure and (2) recklessness as to the possibility of the more culpable result of serious injury. Sweet was separately charged with a particular second-degree murder count, § 125.25[4], that did not require proof of intentional conduct; it required proof that the crime was committed “[u]nder circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life” and that the defendant “recklessly engage[d] in conduct which create[d] a grave risk of serious physical injury or death to another person less than eleven years old and thereby cause[d] the death of such person.” Because the requirement of § 125.25(4) that the defendant act “[u]n-der circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life” is not a mens rea element under New York law, People v. Cole, 85 N.Y.2d 990, 629 N.Y.S.2d 166, 652 N.E.2d 912, 913 (1995), § 125.25[4] thus requires proof of only one mental state as to one result: recklessness as to “conduct which creates a grave risk of serious physical injury.” The evidence in this case could support a finding that Sweet brutally and intentionally beat three-year-old Nina Fiser, while recklessly risking her death, indifferent as to whether she died.
Quite plainly under New York’s “inconsistent verdicts” provision, there is nothing inconsistent with the two homicide counts charged here because “guilt of the offense charged in one [does not] necessarily negate[ ] guilt of the offense charged in the other.” N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 300.30[5]. Sweet’s intent to physically injure his victim is fully consistent with his recklessness as to a grave risk of her “serious physical injury,” as required by § 125.20[4], and to the grave risk of “serious physical injury or death” under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, as required by § 125.25[4],
Although the foregoing analysis of the elements is straightforward, the New York courts have complicated the matter. In People v. Robinson, 145 A.D.2d 184, 538 N.Y.S.2d 122 (4th Dep’t 1989), aff'd mem., 75 N.Y.2d 879, 554 N.Y.S.2d 473, 553 N.E.2d 1021 (1990), the defendant punched and kicked the victim into a state of unconsciousness, bound him with electrical cord, transported him to a public park, and abandoned him there on the snow-covered ground, where the victim died of hypothermia. The defendant was convicted of first-degree manslaughter, pursuant to N.Y. Penal Law § 125.20[1] (“With intent to cause serious physical injury to another person, [the defendant] causes the death of such person or of a third person[.]”), and second-degree murder, N.Y. Penal Law § 125.25[2] (“Under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, [the defendant] recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes the death of another person[.]”). The intent element in the manslaughter charge applies to the potential result of serious physical injury, while the recklessness element in the murder charge applies to conduct creating a grave risk of death. Following the analysis described above, there is nothing inconsistent with these counts: The jury could have found that, in beating the victim unconscious, the defendant demonstrated an intent to cause serious physical injury while at the same time recklessly creating a grave risk of death. Additionally, the jury could have found the recklessness element on the separate ground *146that the defendant tied the victim up and abandoned him in snow.
Nevertheless, the Fourth Department reversed the convictions on the basis of inconsistent verdicts. Robinson, 538 N.Y.S.2d at 123. Rather than examining each mens rea element in the appropriate context of the potential result to which it is tied in the statute, the Fourth Department expanded the scope of the mens rea to relate to the complete charge and the statute’s ultimate result (i.e., death). Id. at 123 & n. 1. Accordingly, even though the intent component of the manslaughter count related only to serious physical injury, the Fourth Department broadly swept the ultimate result of death under the intent rubric by categorizing the manslaughter charge as “intentional homicide,”1 and then equated the facts at hand with those of Gallagher to vacate the conviction. It stated: “Here, as in Gallagher, ‘because the jury found defendant guilty of both intentional and reckless homicide, it is impossible to determine what if anything the jury decided on the issue of defendant’s mental state at the time of the offense.’ ” Id. at 123 (quoting Gallagher, 516 N.Y.S.2d 174, 508 N.E.2d at 910-11).
The Robinson majority’s categorization elided the substantial difference between an intent to cause serious physical injury in the manslaughter count under § 125.20[1], and an intent to kill, which is not present in the provision. Compare § 125.20[1] with § 125.27[1] (first-degree murder provision requiring proof of an “intent to cause ... death”) and § 125.25[1] (second-degree murder provision requiring proof of “an intent to cause ... death”). In Gallagher, unlike in Robinson, the defendant’s second-degree murder conviction required a finding of an “intent to cause the death of another person.” § 125.25[1]. It is this element that makes § 125.25[1] an “intentional homicide” count that is inconsistent with the reckless homicide count, § 125.15[1], not simply the fact that § 125.25[1] contains a mental element of intent somewhere within the provision.
By mistakenly focusing on the label “intentional homicide”, and hence, on the counts’ ultimate result (death) rather than on the specific results tied to the mens rea elements of each count (serious physical injury and risk of death), the Fourth Department departed from the Court of Appeals’ precedents in Loughlin, 559 N.Y.S.2d 962, 559 N.E.2d at 657-58, and Tucker, 447 N.Y.S.2d 132, 431 N.E.2d at 620. See also Robinson, 538 N.Y.S.2d at 124-27 (Boomer, J., dissenting).
The incorrectness of the Robinson analysis becomes evident when it is viewed in *147the light of single provisions that contain multiple mens rea elements, such as the first-degree manslaughter count of which Sweet was convicted, § 125.20[4], This provision requires proof of both an intent to cause physical injury and recklessness in creating a grave risk of death. Does this statute charge both “intentional homicide” and “reckless homicide”? Under the reasoning of Robinson, this statute could be said to charge both impermissibly, and it would be “inconsistent,” despite containing no internal inconsistency. Such a bizarre result demonstrates the flimsiness of Robinson ’s reasoning-by-labels approach. Simply put, I think Robinson was poorly reasoned and wrongly decided.
Instead of resolving the confusion created by Robinson, I am afraid the Court of Appeals only exacerbated it, first by summarily affirming the Fourth Department’s decision, People v. Robinson, 75 N.Y.2d 879, 554 N.Y.S.2d 473, 553 N.E.2d 1021 (1990), and then, in People v. Trappier, 87 N.Y.2d 55, 637 N.Y.S.2d 352, 660 N.E.2d 1131 (1995), by eonfoundingly trying to reconcile Robinson with its earlier precedents. In Trappier, the defendant, after a confrontation with a security guard, fired three shots in the guard’s direction. One bullet hit the guard’s pants leg, and another travelled past his ear. A jury convicted the defendant of first-degree attempted assault, § 120.10[1] (“With intent to cause serious physical injury to another person, [the defendant] causes such injury to such person or to a third person by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument[.]”) and of first-degree reckless endangerment, NY. Penal Law § 120.25 (“A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the first degree when, under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person.”).
The Court of Appeals correctly ruled that Trappier’s conviction on both counts was consistent. First, the Court of Appeals reconfirmed the rule enunciated in Tucker and Loughlin that “[i]n order to determine whether the jury reached ‘an inherently self-contradictory verdict’ a court must examine the essential elements of each count as charged.” Trappier, 637 N.Y.S.2d 352, 660 N.E.2d at 1133 (quoting Tucker, 447 N.Y.S.2d 132, 431 N.E.2d at 620, and citing Loughlin, 559 N.Y.S.2d 962, 559 N.E.2d at 657-58). Then the court characterized its decision in Gallagher as holding “that a defendant who acts with the conscious objective of bringing about a particular result cannot simultaneously act with conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the very result will occur.” Id. In Gallagher, the defendant could not simultaneously intend to kill the victim and recklessly create a risk of death. By contrast, in Trappier, the court held that the defendant
could certainly intend one result — serious physical injury — while recklessly creating a grave risk that a different, more serious result — death—would ensue from his actions. Defendant, for example, could have fired at [the guard] with the intent to cause him only serious and protracted disfigurement and simultaneously consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that, by so doing, he would create a grave risk of a more severe outcome, [the guard’s] death. Thus, a finding that defendant was guilty of attempted first degree assault did not “necessarily negate [his] guilt” of first degree reckless endangerment.
Id. at 1133-34 (quoting N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 300.30[5]). This reasoning properly tracks each element and analyzes the consistency between the mens rea elements based on the result directly associated with each one.
*148The Court of Appeals then ran into trouble, however, when it attempted to distinguish Robinson. The court accepted the Fourth Department’s reasoning that equated Robinson with Gallagher:
While the inconsistent counts in Robinson involved the same culpable mental states at issue here, the defendant in Robinson — like the defendant in Gallagher and unlike the defendant in the instant case — was convicted for acting intentionally and recklessly as to the same result, the death of the victim. Thus, although the Appellate Division dissent in Robinson correctly concluded that intentional and reckless conduct are mutually exclusive “only when the two culpable mental states concern the same result,” the dissent overlooked the fact that the two homicide counts in Robinson did indeed involve identical outcomes.
Id. at 1134, 516 N.Y.S.2d 174, 508 N.E.2d 909 (quoting Robinson, 538 N.Y.S.2d at 123) (emphasis in original) (internal citations omitted). This analysis, rather than comparing the elements of the two counts, looked instead to the ultimate result underlying the charge, “the death of the victim.” In doing so, the Court of Appeals perpetuated the faulty reasoning in Robinson by stating inaccurately that Robinson was convicted of acting “intentionally and recklessly as to the same result.” (emphasis added). As discussed above, although Robinson may have acted both intentionally and recklessly in the process of causing the same result, under the proper pre-Robinson analysis it is more appropriate to say that he acted intentionally as to causing serious physical injury, but recklessly as to causing a grave risk of death.
The upshot of all of this is that in the wake of Trappier, New York now has two different rules for determining inconsistency: one comparing the elements, and one comparing ultimate results. The first rule follows prior Court of Appeals precedent in Loughlin and Gallagher, the language of N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 300.30[5], and common sense. The second rule, it seems to me, abandons them. Regrettably, New York courts are continuing to apply the second rule. See, e.g., People v. Helliger, 96 N.Y.2d 462, 729 N.Y.S.2d 654, 754 N.E.2d 756, 759 (2001) (expressly “declin[ing] to overrule Robinson ” because the Court of Appeals was “unwilling to upset established precedent”); People v. Horning, 263 A.D.2d 955, 694 N.Y.S.2d 824, 825 (4th Dep’t 1999). New York’s “inconsistent verdicts” doctrine needs more consistency itself. This, of course, is a problem that only the New York Court of Appeals can rectify.

. To support its labeling of the first-degree manslaughter count as "intentional homicide," the majority in Robinson cited two sources. Robinson, 538 N.Y.S.2d at 123 n. 1. The first was a dissenting opinion that described first-degree manslaughter as "intentional homicide” in an off-handed parenthetical comment, People v. Willis, 107 A.D.2d 1058, 486 N.Y.S.2d 569, 571 (4th Dep't 1985) (Hancock and Denman, JJ., dissenting). The second is a practice commentary authored by a New York state judge on the homicide section of the penal code. William C. Donnino, "Practice Commentary, Article 125-Homi-cide, Abortion and Related Offenses,” reprinted in N.Y. Penal Law § 125.05 (McKinney’s 1998). However, Judge Donnino explains that he divides the entire homicide article into four broad categories of "intentional homicide,” "reckless homicide,” "criminally negligent homicide,” and "child homicide” "[f]or commentary purposes." Id. at 227, 486 N.Y.S.2d 569. Moreover, neither source was offering a legal conclusion concerning the applicable mens rea of such a manslaughter count, nor did they contemplate the effect the category "intentional homicide” might have on the analysis of the consistency of verdicts. In many of the crimes included in Donnino's "intentional homicide” category, the homicide itself was not intentional.