People v. Breland

• Citation: 609 N.Y.S.2d 571,631 N.E.2d 577,83 N.Y.2d 286
• Parties: , 631 N.E.2d 577 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Victor BRELAND, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 22 March 1994
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

Page 571

609 N.Y.S.2d 571

83 N.Y.2d 286, 631 N.E.2d 577

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Victor BRELAND, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 22, 1994.

Richard L. Herzfeld, New York City, for appellant.

Charles J. Hynes, Dist. Atty. of Kings County, Brooklyn (Victor Barall and Roseann B. Mackechnie, of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

BELLACOSA, Judge.

Appellant Victor Breland was a key operative in a major crack cocaine network spread principally through Brooklyn. With the assistance of confederates, he committed a series of serious crimes during several months in 1988, for which he was jointly prosecuted. Breland was found guilty by a jury after a lengthy trial of enterprise corruption; murder in the second degree (six counts); attempted murder in the second degree of Willie Ashton; assault in the first degree; and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (four counts). The Appellate Division affirmed, 191 A.D.2d 500, 594 N.Y.S.2d 789, and a Judge of this Court granted him leave to appeal.

An affirmance of the unanimous order of the Appellate Division upholding the judgment of conviction is warranted. We address, as the only issues meriting discussion and analysis, the corroborative evidence under CPL 60.22 and a notice and identification feature arising under CPL 710.30.

I.

Shirley Bibbs, an employee beautician, and James Hamilton, Sr., the father of Breland's rival drug lord, James Hamilton, Jr. (the target of reprisal who happened not to be present), were shot to death by Breland and an accomplice, Johnny Ray Robinson, shortly after noon on March 31, 1988 in the Glamorama Beauty Parlor. Accomplices of appellant Breland (not those jointly tried with him) gave confirmatory detailed accounts of the calculated assault designed to execute James Hamilton, Jr. A caravan of three cars containing the perpetrators assembled at Breland's house. He supplied everyone with the guns and instructed several members concerning their role in firebombing the Glamorama premises as an aftermath to the attack. A new confederate, Willie Ashton, aged 17, who was stationed as an outside lookout and who was to toss the Molotov cocktail, testified at Breland's trial. Breland argues that Ashton remained an accomplice at law (like all the other testifying accomplices) throughout the criminal adventure even though Breland, as he exited the Glamorama shop after the shootings inside, shot at a very close distance and seriously wounded Ashton and shot to death the other lookout, Mitchell Rich. No firebombing took place, as the two designated firebomb tossers were shot by Breland in his plan to eliminate witnesses against him, even if they happened to be confederates.

One week later, on April 6, 1988, as another aftermath of the murders inside and outside the Glamorama shop, appellant Breland also personally executed a man named Joseph Lovell. His role in the over-all criminal enterprise was as a front for all the vehicles used in the crack cocaine business. They were registered in Lovell's name, including vehicles used in the Glamorama attack. Breland duped Lovell into driving with him and another confederate to an isolated street in the gang's principal territory in Brownsville. Once out of the car, Breland turned and shot Lovell in the face at a distance of 12 to 18 inches, killing him instantly. The accomplices' accounts of this murder and of the Glamorama shootings is damning and varied with eyewitness, confessional and circumstantial aspects. As to the Lovell murder, the requisite tending-to-connect links for CPL 60.22 purposes are different from those presented to support the conviction on the Glamorama killings.

Our careful scrutiny of the varieties of nonaccomplice evidence compiled in a lengthy record convinces us that the corroborative links to Breland are sufficient as to both related sets of killings. While the independent evidence might not alone be enough to convict Breland on either murder, it respectively supports the several accomplices' testimony and other forms of evidence, and satisfies our established precedents and principles as to all the crimes for which Breland stands convicted.

II.

We reject the notion that Ashton should be deemed Breland's accomplice as a matter of law to Breland's attempted murder of Ashton. That defies logic and reason, and is contrary to the plain language and purport of CPL 60.22. Also, it is not a conclusion compelled or supportable within the carefully confined rationales of People v. Cona, 49 N.Y.2d 26, 424 N.Y.S.2d 146, 399 N.E.2d 1167, and People v. Cobos, 57 N.Y.2d 798, 455 N.Y.S.2d 588, 441 N.E.2d 1106.

Breland's attempted murder of his erstwhile accomplice, Ashton, constitutes a subsequent independent criminal frame in a series of violent criminal scenes and acts. His own shooting of Ashton outside the beauty parlor severed, in the most profound legal and actual sense, Ashton's initial accomplice relationship to him. Those exit shootings are legally discrete for accomplice corroboration purposes from the slayings inside the Glamorama parlor. Indeed, Breland's disengagement from the murders inside the shop and his decision to eliminate even his own confederates as witnesses, fundamentally altered the legal relationship and operative evidentiary rubrics. That being so, Ashton's testimony was freed of the customary accomplice corroboration inhibitions.

The evidence that Ashton heaped upon a mountain of evidence from unquestionable accomplices readily satisfies the tending-to-connect, nonaccomplice evidence nexus that supports and validates the accomplices' testimony implicating Breland in the murders of the two nontarget individuals inside Glamorama (see, People v. Steinberg, 79 N.Y.2d 673, 584 N.Y.S.2d 770, 595 N.E.2d 845; People v. Moses, 63 N.Y.2d 299, 482 N.Y.S.2d 228, 472 N.E.2d 4; People v. Hudson, 51 N.Y.2d 233, 433 N.Y.S.2d 1004, 414 N.E.2d 385; People v. Daniels, 37 N.Y.2d 624, 376 N.Y.S.2d 436, 339 N.E.2d 139; People v. Morhouse, 21 N.Y.2d 66, 286 N.Y.S.2d 657, 233 N.E.2d 705; People v. Dixon, 231 N.Y. 111, 131 N.E. 752). Especially notable, as the Appellate Division observed, is "Ashton's testimony regarding his own attempted murder * * * [corroborating] the accomplice testimony of Gladden and Easterling that the defendant had only moments before used the same weapon inside the beauty parlor to kill Bibbs and Hamilton" (People v. Breland, 191 A.D.2d 500, 501, 594 N.Y.S.2d 789 [emphasis in original].

We have recently summarized some of the governing standards as follows:

"The corroborative evidence need * * * not establish all the elements of the offense (CPL 60.22[1]; People v. Hudson, 51 N.Y.2d, at 238, 433 N.Y.S.2d 1004, 414 N.E.2d 385, supra; People v. Cunningham, 48 N.Y.2d 938, 940, 425 N.Y.S.2d 59, 401 N.E.2d 182). Seemingly insignificant matters may harmonize with the accomplice's narrative so as to provide the necessary corroboration (People v. Bretti, 68 N.Y.2d 929, 930, 510 N.Y.S.2d 77, 502 N.E.2d 992; People v. Moses, 63 N.Y.2d, at 306, 482 N.Y.S.2d 228, 472 N.E.2d 4, supra; People v. Cunningham, 48 N.Y.2d, at 940, 425 N.Y.S.2d 59, 401 N.E.2d 182, supra)." (People v. Steinberg, 79 N.Y.2d, at 683, 584 N.Y.S.2d 770, 595 N.E.2d 845, supra; see also, People v. Goldfeld, 60 A.D.2d 1, 6, 400 N.Y.S.2d 229).

We are also satisfied that enough nonaccomplice evidence tends to connect Breland to the Lovell murder. Lovell could potentially be traced to implicating Breland in a host of criminal activities by official motor vehicle records ties. As noted, New York's accomplice corroboration protection, while persistently unique, requires only enough nonaccomplice evidence to assure that the accomplices have offered credible probative evidence (People v. Steinberg, 79 N.Y.2d 673, 584 N.Y.S.2d 770, 595 N.E.2d 845, supra ). The corroborative glue does not require independent proof of the elements of the crime to sustain a conviction; it just has to bind the accomplice evidence to the defendant.

In this case, the People supplied several strands of corroborative nonaccomplice evidence. Independent evidence from Emergency Medical Service and police and medical personnel as to the precise location of Lovell's body at the place of execution and the location of the fatal gunshot wounds corresponded with the details of the accomplice who accompanied and aided Breland in the Lovell killing and who testified against him at trial. The vehicle registration course-of-dealing that connected Breland and his confederates to Lovell and to the Glamorama siege is also significant. It provides an objective, strong, verifying synapse to the over-all and particular criminal acts of the enterprise and of...