People v. Valentin

• Decision Date: 12 October 2017
• Citation: 154 A.D.3d 474,61 N.Y.S.3d 479 (Mem)
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Carlos VALENTIN, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

154 A.D.3d 474
61 N.Y.S.3d 479 (Mem)

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent,
v.
Carlos VALENTIN, Defendant–Appellant.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York.

Oct. 12, 2017.

Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Robert S. Dean of counsel), for appellant.

Anthony A. Scarpino, Jr., Special District Attorney, White Plains (Virginia A. Marciano of counsel), for respondent.

154 A.D.3d 474

Upon remittitur from the Court of Appeals for further consideration ( 29 N.Y.3d 57, 52 N.Y.S.3d 249, 74 N.E.3d 632 [2017] ), judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Robert A. Sackett, J.), rendered September 28, 2011, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of manslaughter in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 20 years, unanimously reversed, as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, and the matter remanded for a new trial.

154 A.D.3d 475

In his 2015 appeal to this Court, defendant argued, among other things, that the trial court, under the facts of this case, erred by including an initial aggressor instruction in the justification charge (see Penal Law § 35.15 ). A majority of this Court, with one Justice dissenting, agreed, holding that the jury "could not have reasonably found that defendant was the initial aggressor because the evidence does not support such a conclusion" ( 128 A.D.3d 428, 428, 8 N.Y.S.3d 317 [1st Dept.2015] ). We further held that the error was not harmless, reasoning that "[d]efendant's justification defense presented a close question of whether defendant had a reasonable basis for his use of deadly force, and the charging error could have affected the verdict because the jury might have concluded that defendant was the initial aggressor and, thus, not entitled to a justification defense" ( id. at 429, 8 N.Y.S.3d 317 ). Because we reversed the judgment of conviction and remanded the matter for a new trial, we did not address defendant's contentions that (1) the court erred by...