People v. Bonifacio

• Decision Date: 10 December 1907
• Citation: 82 N.E. 1098,190 N.Y. 150
• Parties: PEOPLE v. BONIFACIO.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

190 N.Y. 150

82 N.E. 1098

PEOPLE

v.BONIFACIO.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 10, 1907.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Giovanni Bonifacio was convicted of murder in the second degree, and appeals. Affirmed.

For opinion below, see 104 N. Y. Supp. 181.George M. Abbot and William E. Woollard, for appellant.

John S. Maxwell, Dist. Atty. (Fox Sponable, of counsel), for the People.

GRAY, J.

The defendant was charged in the indictment with the crime of murder in the first degree, for having killed Ralph Di Scibio, by intentionally and deliberately shooting him with a pistol, on August 7, 1904. His trial resulted in a verdict of murder in the second degree. The Appellate Division, by the unanimous vote of the justices, has affirmed the judgment of conviction and, also, an order, which denied a motion for a new trial, made upon the ground of newly discovered evidence. The defendant has further appealed to this court; but, in so far as his appeal includes the affirmance of the order denying a new trial, the right to a review, in that respect, ceased at the Appellate Division. It was within the discretion of the court below whether to grant the application, or not, and with the exercise of that discretion this court will not interfere. Upon the appeal from the affirmance of the judgment of conviction, all questions of fact, or as to the sufficiency of the evidence, must be regarded as conclusively settled, and there is but one question of any importance, which presents itself for our consideration, and that was raised by an exception to a ruling upon a request to charge. That the deceased was killed by a shot from a pistol drawn by the defendant is not disputed; but whether the shooting was intentional, or in self-defense, or accidental, as the result of a struggle between the two men, formed the issue at the trial. The defendant was one of a gang of laborers, employed upon some highway work, near the city of Amsterdam, in this state, and the deceased kept a store near by. An altercation arose between them concerning a petty indebtedness, owing by the defendant. The testimony for the prosecution tended to establish that the deceased, on the day of the homicide, was insisting upon an immediate payment, and that the defendant should then leave the work. Upon the latter saying that he had no money, the deceased threatened him with personal violence and came towards him. The defendant drew a revolver, and cried out to ‘step back,’ or he would shoot. The deceased continued towards him and, when within a few feet of him, was shot. The defendant then ran away, and the deceased pursued him for a short distance, when he fell to the ground and expired. The defendant was caught some miles away from the scene. The evidence for the defendant did not, substantially, differ as to the altercation between the two; but it tended to show that, when the deceased came forward with threats, he seized hold of the defendant, and that, the latter then drawing his pistol, it went off in the scuffle, or as the result of the deceased's pulling at it. The defendant, in giving his account of the killing, denied any intention in drawing his pistol upon the deceased other than that of frightening him. The trial judge, correctly enough, charged the jurors upon the law, defining and explaining to them the degrees of murder and of manslaughter, and the rule of presumption, and he fairly stated to them the facts of the case. Upon the conclusion of his charge, he was requested by the defendant to charge, further, ‘that, unless the evidence on both sides as a whole excludes every hypothesis except that of guilt, the defendant may be acquitted.’ He answered: ‘I decline to charge in that way. You leave out the word ‘reasonable.” This ruling presents the one question, which justifies some consideration by this court of this case. The jurors had been instructed, in the course of the main charge, that they were to determine whether the defendant had intended to kill the deceased, whether there was any motive shown, and that ‘in order to convict the defendant the evidence must be sufficient to satisfy them beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty.’ Just before the request in question was made, the trial judge, also, at the defendant's request, had instructed the jurors that ‘the burden of proof rests upon the prosecution at all stages of the trial and never shifts to the defendant,’ and that ‘they must be satisfied on every proposition beyond a reasonable doubt.’ There can be no hesitation in concluding that the jurors had been carefully and correctly instructed upon a proposition of great importance to the defendant's right, as to the burden and quantum of proof.

Differing from the rule in civil cases, which demands that the case for either party shall be proved by a preponderance of evidence, the rule in criminal cases requires that the people shall establish their case against a defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. ‘Proof beyond a reasonable doubt’ has been well defined to be that which amounts to a moral certainty, as distinguished from an absolute certainty. Commonwealth v. Costley, 118 Mass. 1. ‘Doubt’ is a state of mind in which a conclusion cannot be reached upon the question before it. If it is not due to mental inability to co-ordinate facts in evidence, it must arise from the absence of some material fact, or because such a fact has not been sufficiently established by the evidence, and therefore the foundations for a belief are insufficient. The application of the rule of reasonable doubt is necessary in all cases; but, in cases depending wholly upon circumstantial evidence, it is proper to emphasize its application by coupling it with a statement that the circumstances must exclude beyond a reasonable doubt every hypothesis except that of guilt. In Starkie's work on Evidence, it is said that ‘juries should convict, when they can do so safely and conscientiously, upon circumstantial evidence, which excludes all reasonable doubt’ (720); and the rule is laid down by the same author that the circumstances should, to a moral certainty, exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved (575). The rule is referred to in the opinion of this court in Ruloff v. People, 18 N. Y. 179, in the discussion upon the proof in cases where there is no direct proof of the death, or of the act of the defendant alleged to have caused death.

The defendant's request should not have been allowed for two reasons, and the qualified refusal of the trial judge, in my opinion, was rather favorable to the defendant than otherwise, even if incorrect, for...