People v. Adames
| Decision Date | 10 June 2008 |
| Docket Number | 2006-03253. |
| Citation | 859 N.Y.S.2d 725,2008 NY Slip Op 05522,52 A.D.3d 617 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Respondent, v. ELKAIND ADAMES, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, count one of the indictment charging the defendant with assault in the first degree is dismissed, and a new trial is ordered as to the remaining counts of the indictment.
According to the People's witnesses, on December 1, 2004 after the defendant threatened the residents of a neighboring apartment building, three of the residents, including the complainant, went to the defendant's apartment building to confront him. According to the People's witnesses, consisting of the three residents and the defendant's downstairs neighbor, who also happened to be the brother-in-law of two of the three women confronting the defendant, the defendant "buzzed" the residents into his building, and when they arrived at the entrance to his apartment, he and the complainant began to fight. After the defendant was pulled into his apartment by his companion he burst out to the hallway with a steak knife and stabbed the complainant in the chest and back.
The defendant and his companion, however, testified to a different version of the events. According to them, as the defendant was leaving his apartment, the complainant and a "whole bunch of people" forced their way into his apartment and began to assault him inside the apartment, causing him to fall to the ground. From the ground, he reached up to a table, grabbed a steak knife, and "pressed" into the complainant, who was on top of him.
The defendant was charged in the indictment with assault in the first degree, attempted assault in the first degree, assault in the second degree, assault in the third degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. After a jury trial, he was convicted of assault in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. The jury was instructed not to consider the remaining counts if it found the defendant guilty of assault in the first degree.
The defendant correctly contends that the People failed to provide legally sufficient evidence that the complainant suffered "serious physical injury" to support his conviction of assault in the first-degree (see Penal Law § 10.00 [10]; § 120.10 [1]; People v Gray, 30 AD3d 771, 772-773 [2006]; People v Sleasman, 24 AD3d 1041, 1042-1043 [2005]; People v Castillo, 199 AD2d 276, 277 [1993]). Although the complainant was stabbed in the chest and back, her wounds required no stitches and caused no damage to her organs, and when she was first examined at a hospital about an...
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