People v. Guzy

• Citation: 89 N.Y.S.3d 783,167 A.D.3d 1230
• Decision Date: 20 December 2018
• Docket Number: 108894
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. John M. GUZY, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court Appellate Division

167 A.D.3d 1230
89 N.Y.S.3d 783

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent,
v.
John M. GUZY, Appellant.

108894

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, New York.

Calendar Date: November 13, 2018
Decided and Entered: December 20, 2018

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John R. Trice, Elmira, for appellant, and appellant pro se.

Joseph A. McBride, District Attorney, Norwich (Hannah E.C. Moore, New York Prosecutors Training Institute, Inc., Albany, of counsel), for respondent.

Before: McCarthy, J.P., Lynch, Clark, Mulvey and Rumsey, JJ.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Mulvey, J.

Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Chenango County (Revoir Jr., J.), rendered June 27, 2016, convicting defendant following a nonjury trial of the crimes of murder in the second degree, attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the first degree (two counts), criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (two counts), criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, tampering with physical evidence, driving while intoxicated and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree (six counts).

On the afternoon of October 27, 2014, defendant, a retired police officer carrying an unlicensed semiautomatic handgun, was driving his vehicle while under the influence of alcohol on a state highway in Chenango County. Defendant closely approached and eventually passed an SUV that was being operated below the posted speed limit by Derek D. Prindle (hereinafter the son), whose father, Derek S. Prindle, was in the front passenger seat. While the accounts differed as to what transpired, it was undisputed that, after defendant passed the Prindle SUV, both vehicles pulled into a parking lot and words were exchanged. During the encounter, defendant shot the father in the stomach, injuring him, and also shot the

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son in the chest and abdomen, causing him to bleed to death. The father and son were unarmed and no weapons were found at the scene. After the shooting, defendant left the scene and drove to a nearby State Police barracks and reported the shooting, tossing the gun out of the window of his vehicle en route, where it was later recovered. A search of defendant's home turned up unlicensed handguns, including an assault rifle, three revolvers, three semiautomatic handguns and ammunition. As relevant here, defendant was thereafter charged by indictment with murder in the second degree, attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the first degree (two counts), criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (two counts), criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, tampering with physical evidence, driving while intoxicated and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree (six counts). Following a bench trial, defendant was convicted of the foregoing charges¹ and sentenced to consecutive prison terms of 25 years to life for the murder conviction and 15 years for the attempted murder conviction, along with lesser concurrent prison sentences for the remaining convictions. Defendant appeals.

We affirm. Defendant argues that his convictions are against the weight of the evidence, including the rejection of his justification defense, which he contends the People failed to disprove. "[A] weight of the evidence analysis requires us to first determine, based on all of the credible evidence, whether a different result would have been unreasonable and, if not, weigh the relative probative force of conflicting testimony and the relative strength of conflicting inferences that may be drawn from the testimony to determine if the verdict is supported by the weight of the evidence" ( People v. Wilson, 164 A.D.3d 1012, 1014, 83 N.Y.S.3d 705 [2018] ; see People v. Sanchez, 32 N.Y.3d 1021, 1023, 87 N.Y.S.3d 135, 112 N.E.3d 312 [2018] ; People v. Danielson, 9 N.Y.3d 342, 348, 849 N.Y.S.2d 480, 880 N.E.2d 1 [2007] ).

At trial, the father, a 61–year–old retiree, testified that his son, age 26, was driving an SUV on the two-lane state highway about 51 miles per hour in a 55–mile–per–hour speed zone. A car driven by defendant approached the SUV from the rear, followed very closely behind and then pulled beside the SUV for a moment and then pulled in front of the SUV. Defendant then slammed on his brakes and, after a pause of a few seconds, he again slammed on his brakes, blocking both lanes. The father motioned for defendant to pull into an adjacent parking lot to see who was driving and what was going on. Defendant pulled into the parking lot, followed by the son and the father in the SUV, and then defendant, who appeared to be "very [a]ngry" and "very irate," exited his vehicle and approached the SUV, yelling, "Have you got a f* * * * * * problem?" When defendant was about six inches from the passenger side of the SUV, defendant said, "I'll kill you both ... [b]ecause you're a f* * * * * * a* *hole." Defendant then spit in the father's face and, when the father stepped out of the SUV, defendant shot him in the chest. The son exited the vehicle to help his father and tried to restrain defendant by pinning him to the SUV, and the father tried to grab defendant's arm and kicked him in the groin. At that point, defendant shot the son twice, once in the chest and once in the abdomen, and then fled. There were no

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eyewitnesses to the shooting. A few witnesses testified to seeing wrestling or grappling among two or three men from a distance. An attorney driving by testified that he saw two older men appear to grab one another and then saw two men (presumably the father and the son) grab the "lone guy" (presumably defendant). Several other witnesses testified to what the father stated immediately after the shooting, including that the incident began with road rage, that defendant said he would kill them before shooting them and that defendant hit the father in the head with the gun and spat in his face. Some of the accounts contained inconsistencies with regard to, among other details, who pulled into the parking lot first and which person defendant shot first.

Defendant, a 57–year–old correction officer and retired police officer, offered a different account of the incident. He recounted that the father continually gave him the middle finger as defendant passed the SUV, so defendant pulled into the parking lot to "get away" from the SUV. According to defendant, the SUV followed him into the parking lot, where the son and the father exited the SUV and, after the father said, "Let's kick his ass," the pair approached defendant and began punching him in the face and head. Defendant fought back and spit in the father's face when the father kicked him. Defendant hit the son in the head with his gun a few times and told them to "[g]et the f* * * away" and, after the father said, "Get the gun," defendant shot the son twice, fearing that he would get his gun. When the father tried to grab the gun, defendant shot him.

Although a different verdict would not have been unreasonable, viewing the trial evidence in a neutral light, we do not find that County Court, the trier of fact, failed to give the evidence the weight that it should be accorded (see People v. Bleakley, 69 N.Y.2d 490, 495, 515 N.Y.S.2d 761, 508 N.E.2d 672 [1987] ; People v. Rice, 162 A.D.3d 1244, 1246, 78 N.Y.S.3d 776 [2018], lv denied 32 N.Y.3d 940, 84 N.Y.S.3d 867, 109 N.E.3d 1167 [2018] ). We defer to the underlying credibility assessments of the trier of fact, which had the opportunity to view the witnesses and hear their conflicting testimony, and find that the verdict is supported by the weight of the credible evidence (see id. ). To that end, the father, which the trier of fact credited, testified that defendant was driving aggressively and, after the son pulled into the parking lot, it was defendant who exited his vehicle and approached the SUV, cursing and angry that the son had been driving slowly; defendant never identified himself as a retired police officer or indicated that he was carrying a weapon. It is also significant that defendant threatened to kill the father and the son before spitting in the father's face and then punched and shot the father after he exited the SUV, causing him severe injuries. When the son came to his stricken father's aid and tried to help him restrain defendant, defendant twice shot the son at close range.

The evidence, including defendant's conduct, threats to kill the father and the son and the surrounding circumstances, convincingly established that, acting with the requisite intent, defendant attempted to kill the father and killed the son, and he caused serious physical injury to both by means of a deadly weapon, committing the charged crimes of attempted murder of the father, intentional second degree murder of the son and assault in the first degree as to both victims (see People v. Every, 146 A.D.3d 1157, 1162, 46 N.Y.S.3d 695 [2017], affd 29 N.Y.3d 1103, 61 N.Y.S.3d 194, 83 N.E.3d 202 [2017] ). Defendant's testimony to the contrary was rationally rejected as not credible, and his claim that he pulled into the parking lot to

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"get away...