Court Opinion

ID: 9524108
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:50:00.999117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:52.437523
License: Public Domain

Graffeo, J.
(dissenting). Defendant was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder for breaking into the home of his former girlfriend and successively shooting her and her husband in the head as they slept. The majority concludes that defendant can receive only one sentence of imprisonment for the two murders because consecutive sentencing is impermissible under Penal Law § 70.25 (2). I respectfully dissent because I believe the sentencing court’s imposition of a separate consecutive sentence for each homicide was lawful.
Penal Law § 70.25 (2) directs that consecutive sentencing is impermissible in only two circumstances: (1) when “two or more offenses [are] committed through a single act or omission” or (2) when “two or more offenses [are] committed . . . through an act or omission which in itself constituted one of the offenses and also was a material element of the other.” Under the Penal Law, an “act” is “a bodily movement” and an “omission” is “a failure to perform an act as to which a duty of performance is imposed by law” (Penal Law § 15.00 [1], [3]).
When a defendant has been convicted of more than one offense, the sentencing court must review both the relevant Penal Law provisions and the particular facts proved at trial to identify whether any of the crimes are single act offenses. In this case, the inquiry begins with the first-degree multiple murder provision, which requires proof that,
“[w]ith intent to cause the death of another person, [defendant] cause[d] the death of such person . . . and . . .
“as part of the same criminal transaction, the defendant, with intent to cause serious physical injury to or the death of an additional person or persons, causefd] the death of an additional person or persons” (Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [viii] [emphasis added]).
*501Thus, the statute contemplates proof of at least two act elements: causing the death of one person and causing the death of an additional person. And, in the factual context presented here, the People could not have obtained either first-degree murder conviction without proving two homicidal acts — that defendant shot his former girlfriend and then did the same to her husband.
Based on a review of the elements of the offenses and the facts underlying these convictions, this case clearly does not fall within the first prong of Penal Law § 70.25 (2) because the two offenses at issue were not committed through a “single act or omission.” The second prong of the statute is also not implicated because the two offenses were not committed “through an act or omission which in itself constituted one of the offenses” (id. [emphasis added]). Each shooting was a separate act and each offense required the People to prove both shootings, i.e., each count required proof of more than one act. There was no single act or omission which in itself constituted one of the offenses. Because defendant’s criminal conduct does not fall within either scenario addressed in Penal Law § 70.25 (2), consecutive sentencing is not prohibited.1
The majority’s conclusion to the contrary is inconsistent with our precedent, particularly People v Laureano (87 NY2d 640 [1996]), in which we have interpreted Penal Law § 70.25 (2) according to its plain language. In Laureano, defendant pleaded guilty to manslaughter and robbery arising from the robbery and death of a single victim. At the plea allocution, defendant admitted forcibly stealing property from the victim and causing him serious physical injury by slitting his throat, resulting in his death. The sentencing court imposed consecutive sentences but this Court concluded that concurrent sentences were required under Penal Law § 70.25 (2). Consecutive sentencing was prohibited in Laureano because manslaughter is a single act offense and the act the People relied on to support that count — slitting the victim’s throat — was the same act that fulfilled the serious physical injury element of the first-degree robbery count. This single act, which “in itself’ constituted one *502of the offenses (manslaughter), underlay both counts, rendering consecutive sentencing impermissible.2
The facts in Laureano are significantly distinguishable from this case. Laureano involved a single homicidal act and a single victim; here, there were two homicidal acts and two victims. The single act in Laureano — cutting the victim’s throat — in itself constituted one of the offenses: manslaughter. Here, no single act constituted one of the offenses; each offense by definition involved multiple acts. The fact that concurrent sentencing was required in Laureano does not compel the same result here.
Although the Laureano Court used the phrase “actus reus” to refer to the act underlying the manslaughter offense, it did not supplant the “single act or omission” language of Penal Law § 70.25 (2) by suggesting that other offenses that require proof of multiple acts would also trigger that subdivision. The “actus reus” nomenclature, while helpful in distinguishing between act-based elements (which are relevant to the concurrent sentencing inquiry) and mental state or “mens rea” elements (which are not), is not a substitute for applying the “single act” analysis prescribed by the Legislature. We did not hold in Laureano, or the other cases cited by the majority, that a multiple act offense can be transformed into a single act offense merely by grouping the act elements together and describing them as a single “actus reus.” In Laureano we employed the “actus reus” analysis precisely because the manslaughter offense was predicated on a single act element, thereby triggering the sentencing statute. By substituting the phrase “actus reus” for the language the Legislature used (and defined) in the statute, the majority now turns every offense into a single act offense, regardless of the number of culpable act elements it includes.3 In effect, this rewrites the statute so that it is now implicated *503whenever any number of culpable acts — combined into one “actus reus” — result in multiple offenses.
The majority opines that the Legislature could not have intended courts to distinguish between one and several bodily movements.4 Based on the language it chose, I believe the Legislature recognized that some crimes — such as the manslaughter offense in Laureano — require proof of only one “act” element (causing the death of the victim); others, such as the multiple murder offense at issue here, involve two (causing the death of victim A and causing the death of victim B) or more. It is therefore not difficult to identify the single act offenses that require scrutiny under Penal Law § 70.25 (2) (see e.g. People v Bryant, 92 NY2d 216 [1998] [criminal possession of a weapon]; People v Ramirez, 89 NY2d 444 [1996] [first-degree robbery]). But these first-degree multiple murders are in a different category. In this case, there were two distinct injurious acts giving rise to two murder charges relating to two victims. Consecutive sentencing should be permissible and I perceive no basis to disturb the sentence imposed by the sentencing court.
Granted, the impact of the effective reduction in sentence for this defendant is minimal because he received two consecutive sentences of life without parole; where life without parole is concerned, there is no practical difference between consecutive and concurrent sentences. But in cases where a defendant convicted of two or more counts of multiple murder did not receive the maximum sentence, the impact may be substantial.5 *504A defendant convicted of killing two people, who received two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life (one for each victim), will now serve 25 years to life rather than the 50 years to life deemed appropriate by the sentencing court. Ironically, consecutive sentencing will remain an option for a defendant who tried to kill two people but succeeded at killing only one; that defendant, convicted of one count of intentional murder and one count of attempted murder, will still be eligible for a 50 years to life sentence. Similarly, as the majority acknowledges, had defendant been convicted only of second-degree murder for each homicide, he could have served consecutive sentences for each of those counts under Penal Law § 70.25 (2) (see People v Truesdell, 70 NY2d 809 [1987]; People v Brathwaite, 63 NY2d 839 [1984]). Defendant having been convicted of the greater offenses, the majority nonetheless concludes concurrent sentencing is required.
The impact of the majority’s ruling on future cases is equally troubling for it significantly curtails the discretion that had been available to sentencing courts. Before today, a court could choose from among a wide range of sentencing options in a case like this one. The court could impose the maximum: consecutive sentences of life without parole (the choice the sentencing court made in this case). Or the court could impose concurrent sentences of 20 or 25 years to life, since a court always has discretion to impose concurrent sentences, even when consecutive sentencing is permissible. And, in the middle range, the court could impose two consecutive sentences of 20 years to life, 25 years to life, or anything in between — meaning a young defendant deemed deserving of some form of leniency might obtain a parole-eligible sentence of 40 or 50 years to life, with the possibility of one day securing parole release.
By holding that consecutive sentencing is impermissible in the context of first-degree multiple murder, the majority has rendered the middle range of sentencing options illegal, leaving sentencing courts with an extreme and limited choice: either *505impose life without parole or issue a sentence that ensures that defendant will be eligible for parole, at the latest, in 25 years. Since there are scores of defendants convicted of two counts of second-degree murder or attempted murder who are currently serving sentences of 40 or 50 years to life, courts that might otherwise have chosen a comparable sentence for a defendant convicted of multiple murder may now be more inclined to impose life without parole in an effort to achieve some measure of consistency and parity in sentencing. Otherwise, a defendant convicted of first-degree offenses may obtain a significantly shorter sentence than a defendant convicted of second-degree offenses arising from similar homicidal acts. For this reason, I suspect that the result achieved by this defendant (who will not receive any meaningful benefit), will inure to the detriment of future defendants who might have received a lengthy but parole-eligible sentence instead of life without parole.
Nor can the decision to disregard the plain language of the statute be explained as an effort to give effect to legislative intent. No one (not even the majority) argues that the Legislature — which chose to make multiple murder a first-degree crime, putting it in the narrow class of murder “plus” offenses deemed deserving of the highest punishment — intended to preclude consecutive sentencing for this class of first-degree murderers, especially given that consecutive sentencing is permissible for second-degree murders responsible for precisely the same acts. For all of these reasons, because the consecutive sentencing regime imposed by the sentencing court was lawful, I would reverse the order of the Appellate Division.
Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Smith and Jones concur with Judge Ciparick; Judge Graffeo dissents in a separate opinion in which Judges Read and Pigott concur.
Order affirmed.

. As the Court explained in People v Ramirez, “[s]ection 70.25 (2) does not prohibit convictions of multiple offenses containing overlapping elements. Rather, the statute prohibits double punishment for an act or omission which violates more than one section of the law and is accordingly punishable in different ways” (89 NY2d 444, 451 n 5 [1996] [emphasis added]). Here, the People did not rely on a single act or omission to charge defendant with violating more than one section of the law.

. In Laureano, the Court indicated that if defendant had engaged in some other act that caused serious physical injury — e.g., if defendant had also beaten the victim — consecutive sentencing would have been permissible in that case (see Laureano, 87 NY2d at 644-645). Thus, even when there is only one victim, a defendant who engages in multiple injurious acts can be sentenced consecutively for offenses arising from those acts.

. I do not dispute the majority’s definition of “actus reus” as set forth in Black’s Law Dictionary. But that phrase does not appear in Penal Law § 70.25 (2); rather, the Legislature used the word “act,” a term it defined in the Penal Law. Notably, the Legislature’s definition comports with the definition of “act” in Black’s Law Dictionary, which quotes Model Penal Code § 1.13: “ ‘[A]ct’ or ‘action’ means a bodily movement whether voluntary or involuntary” (Black’s Law Dictionary 26 [8th ed 2004]).

. If the majority’s point is that most crimes involve numerous bodily acts, I do not disagree. However, this does not present a problem because, for sentencing purposes, we need concern ourselves only with the particular act(s) that fulfill the act element(s) of the offense of which a defendant is charged. For example, to accomplish a second-degree intentional murder, a single act offense, a defendant necessarily engages in many bodily acts — but the only one the People must prove to support the conviction is the act that causes the victim’s death.

. The majority ruling will result in the elevation of form over substance in the indictment of first-degree multiple murder counts; semantic variations in pleading will now determine whether a defendant can be punished only once or can receive consecutive sentences in a case where more than two victims are killed through distinct homicidal acts. As I interpret the statute, consecutive sentencing for each victim is permissible regardless of whether all the victims are named in each multiple murder count but the same is not true under the majority’s analysis. For example, in a case where defendant killed three victims, if all three are referenced in each count, concurrent sentencing will be required. But, as the majority acknowledges, consecutive sentencing will be permissible if the People name only two of the three victims in each *504count, thereby pleading three counts of first-degree multiple murder, each containing a different combination of victims. If pleaded in this manner, Penal Law § 70.25 (2) is not implicated, even under the majority’s interpretation of the provision. As such, a defendant who kills three or more people will still be exposed to as many consecutive sentences as there are victims but a defendant who kills two people will be punished only once. I see no evidence that the Legislature intended such an anomalous result, nor do I believe the propriety of consecutive sentencing should vary depending on how the People choose to structure multiple murder counts in the indictment.