People v. Negron
| Decision Date | 02 October 1980 |
| Citation | 105 Misc.2d 492,432 N.Y.S.2d 348 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York v. Robert NEGRON, Defendant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court |
Dist. Atty., Robert Morgenthau, by William K. Hoyt, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., New York City, for the People.
Goltzer & Adler, by George R. Goltzer, New York City, for defendant.
The defense has moved to reargue a motion to sever the first count of this indictment from the other five. The People oppose reargument on two grounds:
1. The motion to sever and a previous motion to reargue were denied by another justice of this court; and
2. The joinder of the two offenses involved is proper in any event.
On its face, this indictment contains criminal charges which encompass two separate and distinct homicides. Count one of the indictment deals with the intentional murder of one Eugene Hayes, committed on October 21, 1977; counts two through six involve an intentional and felony murder as well as the underlying predicate felonies of robbery and burglary which occurred on November 2, 1977. In all of these crimes Jose Acevedo was the alleged victim. Any consideration of the severance must begin with the proposition that the joinder of unrelated though similar crimes is inherently prejudicial to the defendant.
However, before the severance issue can be considered, the court must deal with the issue of "law of the case." Another justice of this court has twice denied the severance requested in the instant motion. This court, prior to considering this motion to reargue, consulted with the justice who rendered the prior decisions. That justice concurred that this court, before whom the trial of this indictment will be conducted, should hear and decide any motion to reargue.
Even absent this consent, this court feels that it has inherent power to consider this question de novo for the following reasons.
The joinder in this case is based upon Criminal Procedure Law section 200.20 subdivision (2)(b) and (c). Joinder under subdivision (2)(c) is based solely on the fact that the two offenses are similar in law. For this reason, joinder of this type is discretionary with the court (CPL § 200.20(3)). The inherent prejudice of joining two homicides as heinous as those alleged in this criminal action, overwhelmingly militates against this type of joinder. To permit such a joinder in this case would be an abuse of discretion.
Joinder under Criminal Procedure Law, section 200.20 subdivision (2)(b) is based upon the so called Molineux rule (People v. Molineux, 168 N.Y. 264, 61 N.E. 286 (1901)). Where the evidence of one crime is sufficiently probative on an issue in the second to outweigh the prejudice involved, then both crimes can be tried together. A court ruling on this issue must balance the probative value of the evidence against the potential prejudice to the defendant (People v. Allweiss, 48 N.Y.2d 40, 421 N.Y.S.2d 341, 396 N.E.2d 735). This balancing test, while never easy to apply, is certainly more readily employed in the trial context for which it was designed. The difficulty of applying it to a pre-trial motion to sever when the issues and evidence are not clearly defined is obvious (People v. Yuk Bui Yee, 94 Misc.2d 628, 405 N.Y.S.2d 386 (Sup.Ct.N.Y.Co., 1978)). In...
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