Court Opinion

ID: 9707512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:14:14.165926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:34.383152
License: Public Domain

G.B. Smith, J. (dissenting).
The totality of the evidence was legally insufficient to prove the identity of the defendant. Indeed, the evidence in this case raises a serious question of whether an innocent man has been convicted.*
The case before us is here after a second trial. After the first trial, this Court reversed the conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct (94 NY2d 519 [2000]). In our prior opinion, we stated the facts:
*85“Complainant, Diane Chappelle, is the wife of the pastor of the International Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, and a teacher at the International Christian School, located within the church. In the early evening on April 8, 1996, complainant walked to school to prepare for class the following day. After finding her classroom in complete disarray, complainant encountered a gunman standing in the hallway approximately three feet away as she was exiting the room. She screamed, backing into the classroom with her hands up and observing the gunman for approximately 5 to 10 seconds before closing her eyes as instructed. The gunman further rummaged through the classroom looking for money and stole complainant’s wedding ring. He then tied complainant’s hands and feet with a cord while searching the church for money. When complainant was certain that the gunman had fled, she freed herself, ran home and called the police” (94 NY2d at 521).
The complainant gave substantially the same testimony at the second trial. She testified that she observed defendant for more than a glimpse. She also described herself as “upset” and “disoriented.” She identified defendant as the perpetrator and testified that she picked him out of a lineup.
After the second trial, defendant was convicted of robbery in the first degree and burglary in the second degree. That conviction was affirmed by the Appellate Division.
There are several reasons why the conviction in this case should not be upheld. First, the only issue in this case, as it was in the first, was identification. The complaining witness observed the defendant only for a matter of seconds before she was told not to look at him. The complaining witness was “upset” and “disoriented” by the encounter. Her original description of the perpetrator was that he was of slight build. The defendant in this case weighed 215 pounds and was 5 feet, 7 inches tall and such a person is not of slight build. It is true, as the majority emphasizes, that the complaining witness was, judging from the record, a perfectly honest woman and a “religious school teacher.” (Majority op at 83.) It is even possible that she is one of those rare people who, having glimpsed a stranger for seconds in the midst of a terrible emotional trauma, could reliably identify that stranger months later—but the rec*86ord does not support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that she did so here.
Second, apart from the complaining witness’s unreliable identification, no evidence of substance connects defendant to the crime. While there is some indication that the defendant was apprehended because he lived in the area, the evidence was that the defendant actually lived 1.2 miles away in a densely populated area of Brooklyn. The majority (at 83) relies on defendant’s question, “Did she really pick me out?,” asked at a time when, the police testimony indicates, no one had told him the victim was a woman. But the same testimony indicates that no one had told him he was “picked out of photos.” Either he was guessing about the photos, in which case, why not also about the sex of the victim, or someone had told him more than the testimony discloses.
Third, a fingerprint and a palm print from a cabinet admittedly handled by the perpetrator did not match defendant’s.
The majority correctly states the applicable legal test: whether a rational trier of fact could have found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that defendant committed this crime. The test is not met. A rational person might believe that defendant is possibly or probably guilty, but it is irrational to say, on this record, that all reasonable doubt of his guilt has been eliminated. It is true that we have upheld convictions in the past based on the identification testimony of a single eyewitness, but in none of those cases was there as little reason as there is here to believe that the identification was correct.
Apart from the weakness of the evidence against defendant, there are other troubling aspects of this case. The defendant testified in the first trial that he was at home eating dinner with his parents at the time of the robbery. In the second trial, there was no alibi defense. The record indicates that the defendant’s father was suffering from heart problems and that his mother was suffering from a physical disease and depression. While the parents could have testified at the first trial and did not, neither was available to testify at the second trial.
As noted above, the conviction in the first trial was reversed by this Court because of the actions of the prosecutor. Those actions prejudiced defendant because he was unable to mount an adequate alibi defense in his second trial.
Thus, the conviction should be reversed.
*87Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Rosenblatt, Graffeo and Read concur with Judge Ciparick; Judge Rosenblatt concurs in a separate concurring opinion; Judge G.B. Smith dissents and votes to reverse in another opinion in which Judge R.S. Smith concurs.
Order affirmed.

 Although defendant received a 20-year sentence after his first trial, he refused after reversal to plead guilty in exchange for time served. While evidence of the results of a lie detector examination is inadmissible as evidence in a court of law, it is undisputed that the defendant passed two lie detector tests.