People v. Smith

• Citation: 63 N.Y.2d 41,468 N.E.2d 879,479 N.Y.S.2d 706
• Parties: , 468 N.E.2d 879 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Lemuel SMITH, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 02 July 1984
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

Page 706

479 N.Y.S.2d 706

63 N.Y.2d 41, 468 N.E.2d 879

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Lemuel SMITH, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

July 2, 1984.

William M. Kunstler, Mark B. Gombiner, C. Vernon Mason, New York City, Robert H. Gombiner, Peter J. Avenia, Poughkeepsie, and Ronald L. Kuby, Ithaca, for appellant

William E. Stanton, Sp. Dist. Atty., New York City (B. Anthony Morosco, White Plains, and Richard Schisler, Poughkeepsie, of counsel), for respondent.

Robert Abrams, Atty. Gen. (Michael S. Buskus, Peter H. Schiff and Peter J. Dooley, Asst. Attys. Gen., of counsel), in his statutory capacity under section 71 of the Executive Law.

Mitchell A. Karlan, Anthony G. Amsterdam and John H. Hall, New York City, for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and others, amici curiae.

Johathan E. Gradess, Troy, Edward H. Wassermann, Donald B. Smith, Albany, Martin I. Rosenbaum and Charles F. O'Brien, Albany, for New York State Defenders Association, amicus curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

KAYE, Judge.

After a jury trial, defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. This direct appeal as of right by defendant (N.Y. Const., art. VI, § 3, subd. b; CPL 450.70, subd. 1), the lone resident of New York's death row, presents three questions: (1) whether the evidence was sufficient to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; (2) whether alleged trial errors deprived him of a fair trial; and (3) whether the State's mandatory death sentence (Penal Law, § 60.06) for one convicted of murder while "confined in a state correctional institution * * * upon a sentence for an indeterminate term the minimum of which was at least fifteen years In May 1981, Donna Payant was employed as a corrections officer at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, New York, where defendant was serving an indeterminate sentence of 25 years to life. ¹ Some time after reporting for work on the afternoon of May 15, 1981, Payant disappeared. Her body was discovered the next morning at a landfill in Amenia, New York, when refuse from Green Haven was dumped and examined. An autopsy revealed that she had died of ligature strangulation.

and the maximum of which was natural life" (Penal Law, § 125.27, subd. 1, par. cl. ) is constitutional. We conclude that the evidence was sufficient to prove defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that the court below committed no reversible error in the conduct of the proceedings. We also conclude, however, that New York's mandatory death penalty law is unconstitutional. For these reasons we modify the judgment by vacating the sentence of death and remitting the case to the Supreme Court, Dutchess County, for resentencing and, as so modified, we affirm the judgment.

Three weeks later, an information was filed in Beekman Town Court accusing defendant of Payant's murder and charging him with violation of section 125.27 of the Penal Law, a felony which mandates a sentence of death upon conviction. The Dutchess County Grand Jury indicted defendant in October 1981. Because of a potential conflict involving the Dutchess County District Attorney's office, a Special District Attorney was appointed by the court, and at a later date defendant's present counsel were appointed pursuant to article 18-B of the County Law. Defendant's pretrial motions to dismiss the indictment, for recusal of the Trial Judge, and for a change of venue were denied.

Defendant's trial commenced in January 1983. On April 21, 1983, after three days' deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Defendant's motion to set aside that verdict was denied, and on June 10, 1983 he was sentenced to death. This appeal followed.

The People's case consisted of circumstantial evidence showing that Payant's known movements at Green Haven on May 15, 1981 brought her to an area near the Catholic Chaplain's office, where defendant worked that day, that Payant and defendant had previously spoken, that Payant and defendant were observed entering the Catholic Chaplain's office together on the day of her disappearance, and that defendant had access to a room (the library of the Chaplain's office) to which he could have lured Payant and killed her in relative seclusion, to materials (cord, plastic bags and masking tape) similar to those with which she was killed and her body was wrapped, and to vehicles (a large waste drum, a cart for moving refuse, and trash dumpsters) for disposal of her body. The People also introduced testimony of an inculpatory admission defendant made to a fellow inmate approximately one year after Payant's death, and expert testimony that a premortem wound on Payant's chest was a bite mark made by defendant.

Defendant at trial showed that several corrections officers had made prior statements that Payant had been seen at various points of the institution on May 15 after the alleged time of her murder, and that the investigation of Payant's death had produced no evidence--save the bite mark--connecting defendant to Payant's murder. The defense introduced its own expert testimony to show that the mark on Payant's body could not be attributed to defendant, and indeed that it was not even a bite mark.

As discussed in the ensuing sections, we conclude that defendant's guilt was established beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was no reversible error in the conduct of the trial, and that the mandatory death penalty statute is unconstitutional.

I

On this appeal from a judgment of death, the New York Constitution empowers us to review the facts (N.Y. Const., art. VI, §§ 3, 5). The scope of our inquiry has been defined in People v. Davis, 43 N.Y.2d 17, 36, 400 N.Y.S.2d 735, 371 N.E.2d 456, cert. den. 435 U.S. 998, 98 S.Ct. 1653, 56 L.Ed.2d 88 and People v. Crum, 272 N.Y. 348, 350, 6 N.E.2d 51: "A review of the facts means that we shall examine the evidence to determine whether in our judgment it has been sufficient to make out a case of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. We are obliged to weigh the evidence and form a conclusion as to the facts. It is not sufficient, as in most of the cases with us, to find evidence which presents a question of fact; it is necessary to go further before we can affirm a conviction and find that the evidence is of such weight and credibility as to convince us that the jury was justified in finding the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Even in a capital case, however, "this court should not readily interfere with verdicts of jurors who have had the advantage of seeing and hearing witnesses." (People v. Crum, 272 N.Y. 348, 357, 6 N.E.2d 51, supra.)

The People's theory is that defendant killed Payant in the early afternoon of May 15, 1981 inside the Catholic Chaplain's office complex, wrapped her body in plastic bags, placed the body in a 55-gallon waste drum, and dumped it into a dumpster maintained for the disposal of trash, from which it was collected and later discovered. Upon our review of the record, we conclude that the evidence supported this theory and was sufficient to make out a case of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence which in our view justified the jury in finding defendant guilty may be summarized as follows.

Donna Payant began her career at Green Haven some two months before her death. She had spoken with defendant on at least two occasions prior to the date of her disappearance: once when she told him she admired a religious article he had crafted and he in turn told her that he worked in the Chaplain's office, and a second time when they spoke in an area of Green Haven's hospital corridor, near the Chaplain's office, on May 12, 1981. (A diagram of Green Haven is annexed to this opinion.)

On May 15, Payant was scheduled to work the 1:00 to 9:00 p.m. shift, and reported to a lineup to receive her assignments. Her assignments that day were to patrol the A/B yard area, then to escort two companies of inmates from D block to the mess hall for dinner and back, lock those inmates in and conduct a count, and finally to report to the mess hall area at 6:00 p.m. Payant, along with Officers Claude King and Barbara Hinson, after lineup went into the officers' mess, where she purchased a soft drink, then proceeded back to the westside corridor and headed south toward their assignments. The telephone in the westside corridor rang and Officer Hinson answered it. The caller asked for Payant and Hinson called her to the telephone. Payant was on the telephone briefly and was overheard saying "what," "who," "yes," and "okay." After hanging up the telephone, Payant told King there was a problem she had to straighten out and that she would be right back, and she headed back down the westside corridor.

Payant passed both the westside control gate and the control station in the hospital corridor, heading east, at about 1:00 p.m. That direction would lead to the Chaplain's office complex at the other side of the hospital corridor--an area where defendant worked and had been seen that day.

Defendant was a clerk to the Catholic Chaplain. His duties included cleaning the Chaplain's office complex and emptying the garbage collected there. He also worked in Green Haven's package room where, once again, his duties included cleaning the area and transporting and dumping the garbage.

On May 15, 1981 the Catholic Chaplain was away from the institution on military leave. When defendant arrived for work there at 8:30 a.m. the officer in the hospital corridor, as he had done before, let him through the control gates and into the Although defendant elicited testimony from several corrections officers that they had, at various stages of the investigation, previously given statements that Payant was seen elsewhere in the institution on May 15, 1981 after 1:00 p.m., none of the witnesses testifying at trial could recall with certainty seeing her alive after 1:00 p.m.

Chaplain's office. After returning to his cell...