People v. Thibeault
Decision Date | 06 May 2010 |
Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Charles R. THIBEAULT Sr., Appellant. |
Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
73 A.D.3d 1237
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent,
v.
Charles R. THIBEAULT Sr., Appellant.
Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, New York.
May 6, 2010.
Cynthia Feathers, Saratoga Springs, for appellant.
Mark D. Suben, District Attorney, Cortland, for respondent.
Before: CARDONA, P.J., MERCURE, SPAIN, KAVANAGH and GARRY, JJ.
KAVANAGH, J.
Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Cortland County (Campbell, J.), rendered April 23, 2009, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crimes of murder in the second degree, burglary in the first degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree and criminal contempt in the first degree.
On the evening of May 26, 2008, the bloody and half-clad body of defendant's estranged wife was found at the bottom of
Defendant has consistently maintained that he is innocent of any wrongdoing, and on this appeal argues, among other things, that his conviction of these crimes is not supported by legally sufficient evidence, the jury's verdict is against the weight of the credible evidence and evidence was improperly admitted that served to deprive him of a fair trial.2 We disagree.
Throughout this trial, the prosecution based much of its claim that defendant committed this murder on the fact that circumstantial evidence found at the crime scene strongly suggested that the perpetrator knew the victim, had access to her home and entered it intending to harm her. In that regard, it was established that force was not used to gain entry into the victim's home, nor does it appear that any money or property was forcibly taken from the victim during the attack.3 In addition, the postmortem examination confirmed that, while the victim had been battered and bruised during the attack, she was not sexually assaulted. Moreover, the manner of her death-the sheer ferocity of the attack and the fact that the victim died from manual strangulation after she was seriously injured and while she lay helpless on the bottom of the staircase-provides compelling corroboration for the prosecution's contention that this was an attack deliberately aimed at the victim by someone who harbored a deep-seated hatred for her.
The evidence at trial established that the only person in the victim's life who had such a motive and posed a genuine threat to her physical well-being at the time of her death was defendant. As previously noted, an order of protection was in place at the time of the murder barring defendant from the marital residence and prohibiting him from having any contact with the victim. It was also established that, in
In making this determination, we have taken into account defendant's arguments made at trial as to the condition of the patio door and the timeline of his activities on the day of the murder, which he claims serve to create a reasonable doubt as a matter of law as to his guilt. However, even if the jury fully embraced defendant's interpretation of this evidence, it still did not make it impossible or even improbable that he committed this crime. Weighing the conflicting testimony and conflicting inferences that flowed from this evidence, and given the deference that is traditionally accorded a jury's credibility determinations, we conclude that "the jury was justified in finding defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" ( People v. Danielson, 9 N.Y.3d 342, 348, 849 N.Y.S.2d 480, 880 N.E.2d 1 [2007]; see People v. Levy, 52 A.D.3d 1025, 1026, 859 N.Y.S.2d 527 [2008] ).
We disagree with defendant's contention that it was error for County Court to allow into evidence a description of the circumstances that led to the issuance of the order of protection or to permit testimony regarding statements made by the victim to third parties to the effect that she was afraid of defendant. The
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