People v. Lantigua

• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division
• Writing for the Court: Before SULLIVAN
• Citation: People v. Lantigua, 648 N.Y.S.2d 1, 231 A.D.2d 437 (N.Y. App. Div. 1996)
• Decision Date: 17 September 1996
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Jose LANTIGUA, Defendant-Appellant.

Page 1

648 N.Y.S.2d 1

231 A.D.2d 437

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Jose LANTIGUA, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division First Department.

Sept. 17, 1996.

Ann Ehrenpreis Scherzer, for Respondent.

Noah Lipman, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before SULLIVAN, J.P., and MILONAS, WILLIAMS and MAZZARELLI, JJ.

MEMORANDUM DECISION.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Ronald Zweibel, J.), rendered August 23, 1995, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a weapon in the second and third degrees, and reckless endangerment in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to concurrent prison terms of 4 to 8 years, 3 1/2 to 7 years and 1 year, respectively, unanimously affirmed. The matter is remitted to Supreme Court, New York County for further proceedings pursuant to CPL 460.50(5).

The trial court's instruction regarding circumstantial evidence was proper, since, taken as a whole, it was adequate "to inform the jury, in substance, that in order to find the defendant guilty, it was required to find that the inference of guilt was the only one that could fairly and reasonably be drawn from the facts, and that the evidence excluded beyond a reasonable doubt every reasonable hypothesis of innocence" (People v. Perez, 173 A.D.2d 162, 163, 569 N.Y.S.2d 72, lv denied 78 N.Y.2d...