People v. Shulman

• Citation: 843 N.E.2d 125,6 N.Y.3d 1
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Robert SHULMAN, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 25 October 2005
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

Page 125

843 N.E.2d 125

6 N.Y.3d 1

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Robert SHULMAN, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

October 25, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Legal Aid Society, New York City (Andrew C. Fine, Arthur H. Hopkirk, Denise Fabiano, Laura R. Johnson, Elon Harpaz, Joanne Legano Ross and Reed Smith of counsel), for appellant.

Thomas J. Spota, District Attorney, Riverhead (Guy Arcidiacono, Glenn Green, Michael J. Miller, Steven A. Hovani, Anne E. Oh and Marion Tang of counsel), for respondent.

Committee on Capital Punishment, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, New York City (Joshua L. Dratel of counsel), for Association of the Bar of the City of New York, amicus curiae.

Before: Chief Judge KAYE and Judges G.B. SMITH, CIPARICK, ROSENBLATT, GRAFFEO and R.S. SMITH concur.

OPINION OF THE COURT

READ, J.

A jury convicted defendant Robert Yale Shulman, a confessed serial killer, of several offenses, including one count of first-degree murder for intentionally causing the death of three women in "separate criminal transactions ... committed in a similar fashion" (Penal Law § 125.27[1][a][xi]). Because the People filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty, a separate sentencing proceeding followed (see CPL 400.27[1]) in which the jury concluded unanimously that defendant should be executed. As is mandated, defendant appealed directly to this Court (see CPL 450.70[1]; 470.30[2]; see also N.Y. Const., art. VI, § 3[b]).

The death sentence is no longer at issue in this case. Defendant contends, and the People do not dispute, that developments before our decision in People v. LaValle, 3 N.Y.3d 88, 783 N.Y.S.2d 485, 817 N.E.2d 341 [2004] require that the sentence of death be set aside. In Matter of Hynes v. Tomei, 92 N.Y.2d 613, 684 N.Y.S.2d 177, 706 N.E.2d 1201 [1998], cert. denied 527 U.S. 1015, 119 S.Ct. 2359, 144 L.Ed.2d 254 [1999], we struck certain plea provisions from the CPL, concluding that they created an unconstitutional two-tiered penalty level for death penalty cases (see id. at 620, 684 N.Y.S.2d 177, 706 N.E.2d 1201). Citing People v. Harris, 98 N.Y.2d 452, 749 N.Y.S.2d 766, 779 N.E.2d 705 [2002], where "we set aside the death sentence of a defendant who went to trial while the plea provisions were in effect" (People v. Mateo, 2 N.Y.3d 383, 399, 779 N.Y.S.2d 399, 811 N.E.2d 1053 [2004], cert. denied 542 U.S. 946, 124 S.Ct. 2929, 159 L.Ed.2d 828 [2004] [Mateo II]), defendant asserts that we are likewise compelled to set aside his death sentence. We agree. Accordingly, we have no occasion to consider any of defendant's other, now academic challenges to imposition of the death penalty in this case (see id. at 401, 779 N.Y.S.2d 399, 811 N.E.2d 1053; see also Harris, 98 N.Y.2d at 496-497, 749 N.Y.S.2d 766, 779 N.E.2d 705).

Defendant also presses numerous grounds for reversing his convictions, to which we now turn (see CPL 450.70[1]; 470.30[2]; see also People v. LaValle, 3 N.Y.3d at 102-116, 783 N.Y.S.2d 485, 817 N.E.2d 341; Mateo II, 2 N.Y.3d at 401, 779 N.Y.S.2d 399, 811 N.E.2d 1053; People v. Culhane, 33 N.Y.2d 90, 94-95, 350 N.Y.S.2d 381, 305 N.E.2d 469 [1973]). For the reasons that follow, we affirm defendant's convictions.

I.

At about 8:05 A.M. on December 7, 1994, an employee of the Suffolk County Department of Public Works, while traveling on Long Island Avenue from the Department's garage in Yaphank to a job site in the Town of Medford, noticed what appeared to be a brand-new blue Rubbermaid garbage can lying on its side amidst other debris at the road's edge. Stopping his pickup truck to observe the garbage can more closely, he thought to himself that "somebody had dumped a bad load of meat." Upon arriving at the job site, he told his supervisor about this discovery, and suggested that department personnel clean up the area and retrieve the garbage can for use to store their tools. On his way back from the job site to the garage later that morning, the supervisor pulled over to inspect the garbage can. He discovered a woman's remains.

The victim's nude body was partially covered with plastic bags, and a white towel or bath mat was wrapped around her head. A white powdery substance, later determined to be baking soda, was visible on her remains. The victim's left leg was severed midway between the knee and groin area; both arms had been amputated; she had sustained serious blunt force trauma to the face, head, eye, nose and mouth. The victim's left arm displayed a tattoo consisting of a red heart and a banner with the name "Adrian." Despite extensive efforts by the police to find out who this woman was in life, to this day she remains identified only as "Jane Doe Medford."

On April 6, 1995, employees at a recycling plant in Brooklyn, which processes refuse from New York State and elsewhere, happened upon a second dismembered nude female body. The corpse was discovered on a conveyor belt, which was halted just before its contents would have been deposited into a compactor, tied into a bale and transferred to a landfill. This victim was missing her legs; her right arm was cut off at the shoulder, while the left arm, which was severed above the wrist, displayed what appeared to be a self-administered tattoo depicting two small crosses. The head and torso were stuffed in a black plastic bag; the victim's face was badly battered. She was subsequently identified as Lisa Ann Warner.

On December 11, 1995, an employee of a sheet metal company located on Old Walt Whitman Road in Melville, New York, stopped for a lottery ticket on his way into work in the morning. At about 4:00 P.M., he discovered that he had misplaced the ticket. Fearing that he might have accidentally thrown it out, the employee launched a search that ultimately led to a dumpster located in the company's parking lot. When he and a coworker began rummaging through the dumpster to find the ticket, the employee spotted what looked like a quilt and a brand-new sleeping bag, partially encased in plastic garbage bags. He nudged the sleeping bag with a piece of wood, and felt something "hard" inside it, which he assumed was a dead animal. He then enlisted the help of another coworker, who coaxed the sleeping bag's zipper open with the piece of wood. A human foot protruded.

The victim was a female; both of her hands had been cut off just above the wrist. She had suffered severe head trauma and was nude, although a blood-soaked white tee shirt was near her head as was a blue brassiere. Her left breast bore a tattoo with the name "Melani," and just below it, what appeared to be two flowers with their stems intertwined. A powdery white substance, later identified as principally calcium carbonate, was visible on her corpse. Because there was no way to fingerprint the victim, the police released a physical description and a photograph of the tattoo to the news media, and requested help from the public in identifying her.

Acting on an anonymous tip, on December 13, 1995, Suffolk County Homicide Detective Joseph White went to an address in Hollis, Queens, where he talked to three women. They identified the victim as Melani, a fellow prostitute who, like them worked Jamaica Avenue between 198th Street and Francis Lewis Boulevard. Detective White eventually took statements from Camille M. and Maggie D., both of whom last saw Melani on December 8, 1995. They observed Melani, later identified as Kelly Sue Bunting, getting into an older model blue Cadillac driven by a white male. On December 14, 15 and 16, Detective White canvassed a number of area motels patronized by prostitutes, reasoning that Melani could not have been killed and dismembered in a motel room without leaving behind the conspicuous signs of a bloody encounter. He found no information to assist him in his investigation.

From his conversations with several prostitutes, however, Detective White learned that a white male who drove a blue Cadillac frequently solicited them along Jamaica Avenue. This man took the women not to a motel, but to a residence in Nassau County. He lived in a room in the rear of the first floor, which was entered from the back through a screened-in porch. He would ask the women to strip and "cook" his powdered cocaine into crack, using baking soda and water. Over time, Detective White obtained consistent statements from five different women (Dawn V., Kathleen W., Roxanne L., Virginia S. and Ann H.) about this man and his habits.

On January 2, 1996 and again on January 3, 1996, first Kathleen W. and then Dawn V. escorted Detective White to a house in Hicksville, where a 1983 blue Cadillac was parked in the driveway. From the license plate number, Detective White established that the car was registered to an individual who turned out to be defendant's brother.

Detective White had discovered that only Sears sold the brand of sleeping bag in which Kelly Sue Bunting's corpse was wrapped. Once he learned the name of the individual to whom the blue Cadillac was registered, he contacted Sears's loss prevention office in Boston on January 4, 1996 to confirm that this brand of sleeping bag was indeed exclusive to Sears (it was) and to inquire whether this individual (defendant's brother) had "any history with Sears department stores as a customer." The Sears employee to whom Detective White spoke indicated that Sears had a record of defendant's brother at the Hicksville address, and that he was a post office employee and a member of a postal credit union, but did not have a Sears credit card. She then "asked [the detective] if [he] was aware there was a Robert Shulman at that address" in Hicksville. This was how defendant's name first surfaced in the Bunting investigation. Detective White learned that defendant had obtained a Sears credit card in July 1995, although it had never been used, and that, like his brother, he was a post office employee and a member of the postal credit union.

On January 4, 1996,...