People v. Sanchez

• Decision Date: 08 June 1987
• Citation: 131 A.D.2d 606,516 N.Y.S.2d 504
• Parties: The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Luis SANCHEZ, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 504

516 N.Y.S.2d 504

131 A.D.2d 606

The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Luis SANCHEZ, Appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division Second Department.

June 8, 1987.

Philip L. Weinstein, New York City (John B. Spooner of counsel), for appellant.

Elizabeth Holtzman, Dist. Atty., Brooklyn (Barbara D. Underwood, Nikki Kowalski and Richard J. Cutler of counsel), for respondent.

Before THOMPSON, J.P., and NIEHOFF, LAWRENCE and KUNZEMAN, JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.

Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Owens, J.), rendered July 2, 1984, convicting him of murder in the second degree and attempted murder in the second degree, upon a jury verdict, and sentencing him to consecutive indeterminate terms of 25 years to life imprisonment on the murder count, and 8 1/3 to 25 years imprisonment on the attempted murder count.

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.

The defendant stands convicted of the attempted murder of Sonia Heron, the daughter of his girlfriend Petra Maldonado, and the murder of Sonia's husband, James Heron. The crimes were the culmination of a family dispute which erupted from the continuing course of dissension between the defendant and the victims. The defendant had lived with Petra Maldonado in the attic apartment of a three-story house in Brooklyn which Petra owned. Sonia and James Heron and their two children Jamie and Nellie lived in the second floor apartment of the same residence. The circumstances of the events in question are derived from the trial testimony of the two eyewitnesses, Jamie and Nellie. On the afternoon of May 21, 1983, Jamie, then ten years old, Nellie, then 17 years old, and several of their friends were playing "whiffleball" in front of their home. The defendant told them not to play ball near his car which was parked in front of the house. The game continued, so the defendant took the ball. At that point, Sonia emerged from the house and confronted the defendant. She asked for the ball, which the defendant returned. Moments later, James Heron, the deceased, came out of the house. After a heated exchange, James punched the defendant several times, knocking him to the ground. The defendant got up and returned to the house. James, Sonia and the two children followed. While James, Nellie and Jamie went to their second floor apartment, Sonia continued up the stairs toward the attic apartment. Moments later Petra cried "No, Louie, no". This exclamation was followed by the sound of a gunshot. Nellie, who was in the hallway, saw her mother tumbling down the stairs from the third floor. The defendant came down the stairs after Sonia, saw that she was still moving, and fired again while she lay on the floor.

The defendant continued past Nellie toward the second floor apartment, as Nellie pleaded with him to stop shooting. Meanwhile, James attempted to close his apartment door. The defendant pushed against the door and then fired a shot through it, striking James in the chest. James staggered backwards into the room and fell to the floor. The defendant entered the apartment and, as Nellie and Jamie looked on in horror, he shot James twice more. He immediately fled.

The police responding to the scene found Sonia semi-conscious on the second floor landing. She had suffered gunshot wounds to the chest and head. James was found lying face-up on the floor of the second-floor apartment. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

At the trial, defendant claimed that he was acting in self defense after James had attacked him in the attic apartment and slashed him with a knife. However, both Nellie and Jamie, as well as Petra, testified that James did not have a knife or anything else in his hand during the incident, nor did the police investigating the incident recover a knife. Moreover, the eyewitness testimony and the location of the body of the deceased belie the defendant's version of the events.

Initially, we find that the defendant was not deprived of a fair trial because the trial court precluded him from recalling his girlfriend as a witness to testify as to the deceased's reputation for violence and from recalling himself to testify that he was aware of that reputation. Through cross-examination of the People's witnesses, and the testimony of his own witnesses, the defendant presented extensive testimony as to two specific acts of violence that the deceased had committed against him, one of which occurred a short time before the shootings. This specific testimony of particular acts of violence committed against the defendant was clearly the strongest and most relevant evidence the defendant could have offered regarding his state of mind and his justification defense. Evidence of the deceased's general reputation would have been cumulative and would have had a de minimus effect on the outcome of the trial. Thus, any error with respect to the preclusion of the proposed testimony was harmless.

The defendant's further contention that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury that he had no duty to retreat from his dwelling (see, Penal Law § 35.15) was not preserved for our review (see, ...