People v. Castro

• Decision Date: 16 October 1975
• Citation: 376 N.Y.S.2d 922,37 N.Y.2d 818
• Parties: , 339 N.E.2d 620 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Miguel CASTRO, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 922

376 N.Y.S.2d 922

37 N.Y.2d 818, 339 N.E.2d 620

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v.Miguel CASTRO, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 16, 1975.

Martin B. Adelman, New York City, for appellant.

Robert M. Morgenthau, Dist. Atty. (Robert K. Hood, Peter L. Zimroth, Robert M. Pitler and Karl Savryn, New York City, of counsel), for respondent.

MEMORANDUM.

Order of the Appellate Division affirmed.

The so-called colloquy by the trial court with defendant upon taking his plea of guilty during the trial justified the plea on any possible theory.The reference to defendant not realizing that he had used a great degree of force is ambiguous whether it referred to the fatal beating or prior beatings.The reference to defendant's asserted lack of intent evidently referred to a lack of intent to kill, not to the lack of intent to give a merciless beating to his infant stepdaughter, the last of several physical abuses of the child.Hence, defendant's contentions on appeal, adopted by the dissenters at the Appellate Division, is without basis in law or fact.Indeed, the circumstances of the assault on the child would have justified the jury in convicting defendant of murder, as trial counsel undoubtedly foresaw, if the trial had been completed instead of being interrupted by the voluntary plea of guilty to a lesser crime recommended by his trial counsel.

In any event a colloquy in the taking of a guilty plea should not be parsed in the manner that a common-law pleading would have been scrutinized in the days of the Year Books (seePeople v. Selikoff, 35 N.Y.2d 227, 246, 360 N.Y.S.2d 623, 318 N.E.2d 784).As a matter of fact the trial court was explicit that it was trying to put the matter in layman's language so that defendant would understand what it was saying.Such an effort should not be subjected to...