People v. Campbell

• Decision Date: 06 January 1983
• Citation: People v. Campbell, 458 N.Y.S.2d 322, 91 A.D.2d 1075 (N.Y. App. Div. 1983)
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Michael P. CAMPBELL, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 322

458 N.Y.S.2d 322

91 A.D.2d 1075

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Michael P. CAMPBELL, Appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division Third Department.

Jan. 6, 1983.

Michael J. Howley, Plattsburgh, for appellant.

Joseph W. Kelley, Clinton County Dist. Atty., Plattsburgh (Valerie Friedlander, New York City, of counsel), for respondent.

Before MAHONEY, P.J., and KANE, CASEY, MIKOLL and LEVINE, JJ.

MEMORANDUM DECISION.

Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Clinton County, rendered February 27, 1981, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crime of conspiracy in the fourth degree.

Defendant was indicted on December 13, 1979 on a charge of conspiracy in the fourth degree, alleged to have been committed on October 28, 1979 in Clinton County. The charge was based on an agreement that defendant made with a James Cramer to rob one Thomas Roche in the City of Plattsburgh of some $9,000 in connection with a sale of marihuana. In furtherance of this agreement, defendant is claimed to have provided Cramer with a loaded revolver which was displayed by Cramer in the course of the robbery of Roche, as the overt act of the conspiracy.

Prior to defendant's trial, which commenced on January 29, 1981, Cramer pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and was sentenced to Clinton Correctional Facility. Cramer had been apprehended near Malone, New York, on October 28, 1979 by New York State Police officers, who had received a description of the vehicle used in the robbery from Roche. The vehicle was registered to defendant, but defendant was not present in the car at the time it was stopped. The investigating officers found a loaded .22 calibre gun and a brown paper bag filled with money in the car.

On October 30, 1979, a police informant named Trumble, who also knew defendant, was wired with a remote transmitter and driven by police to defendant's home. The police monitored the conversation between defendant and Trumble in which defendant admitted his connection with the robbery. At about 11:30 P.M. of that same night, five police officers knocked on defendant's door, were admitted by defendant, and gave him his Miranda warnings. When the recorded conversation with Trumble was played for defendant, he identified his own voice, but said his statements were untrue and made to build up his own image to Trumble. Defendant was then arrested.

On this appeal, defendant urges various grounds for reversal, but only two require discussion. The first involves the refusal of the trial court to grant defendant's request to charge the corroboration required of an accomplice under CPL 60.22, as to the witness Cramer. Cramer was called by the prosecution to supply proof of the commission of the underlying robbery, which defendant was charged with the conspiracy to commit, and of Cramer's commission of the overt act of displaying the gun he allegedly obtained from defendant to Thomas Roche, the victim, in furtherance of the conspiracy. While Cramer did admit on the witness stand the robbery and the use of the gun against Roche, he denied that defendant was involved in the crime in any way. Rather, he testified that he asked defendant to borrow his car without disclosing that it was to be used for a criminal venture, and that when defendant went to get the keys to the car, Cramer took defendant's gun, without defendant's knowledge, from a trunk in defendant's apartment where Cramer knew it was hidden. Therefore, according to Cramer, there was no conspiracy between him and defend...