Suarez v. Byrne
| Decision Date | 03 June 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 77.,77. |
| Citation | 10 N.Y.3d 523,890 N.E.2d 201 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Santos SUAREZ, Appellant, v. John BYRNE, as Acting Justice of the Supreme Court, Bronx County, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
At issue in this appeal is whether Santos Suarez may be retried for first-degree manslaughter — a count submitted to but not considered by the jury in his first trial — after his acquittal of intentional murder and our reversal of his conviction for depraved indifference murder on the ground of legal insufficiency. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that Suarez may be reprosecuted for intentional manslaughter; therefore, we affirm.
On February 22, 2000, Suarez stabbed Jovanna Gonzalez in the throat, chest, and abdomen. He fled without summoning help, and Gonzalez, his live-in girlfriend and the mother of his infant daughter, bled to death. For this killing, Suarez was arrested and charged in a four-count indictment with second-degree murder (both intentional and depraved indifference murder) (Penal Law § 125.25[1], [2]); first-degree manslaughter (intentional manslaughter) (Penal Law § 125.20[1]); and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon (possession of a dangerous knife with intent to use the same unlawfully against another) (Penal Law § 265.01[2]).
At trial, Suarez raised justification and extreme emotional disturbance (EED) as defenses, and contested his intent to cause Gonzalez's death, testifying that the stabbing was an "accident" and not intentional. The trial judge submitted four crimes to the jury: intentional murder, first-degree manslaughter (intentional murder reduced by virtue of an EED), depraved indifference murder, and first-degree manslaughter (intentional manslaughter).1
After defining intent as a general matter and explaining justification, the trial judge read and explained the first count of the indictment, intentional murder in the second degree. He then turned to EED, telling the jurors that if they decided that Suarez intentionally murdered Gonzalez while under the influence of an EED (which the judge subsequently defined), they were required to "return a verdict of Manslaughter in the First Degree, instead of guilty of Murder in the Second Degree" (see Penal Law § 125.20[2]). He "refer[red] to [this] crime as reduced manslaughter because we have another count of Manslaughter in the First Degree, that is, [that Suarez] with the intent to cause serious physical injury, caused the death of . . . Gonzalez" (see Penal Law § 125.20[1]). He instructed the jurors that
Next, the trial judge read and explained the second count of the indictment, depraved indifference murder. He then read and explained first-degree manslaughter, the crime that the indictment's third count accused Suarez of committing. The judge summed up as follows:
During the first morning of deliberations, the jury sent the trial judge a note, asking him to explain both intentional homicide, "just a brief breakdown," and depraved indifference murder again. In response, he repeated the definitions of intentional murder and depraved indifference murder. Shortly after lunch, the jury sent him another note, which read 2
After informing counsel that he would not "mention justification as a defense because [the jurors have] already gone beyond that stage," the trial judge read the jury's note aloud and reiterated his instructions, concluding as follows:
(emphasis added).
In short, the judge submitted the intentional and depraved indifference murder counts to the jury in the alternative. He told the jurors not to consider intentional manslaughter (intent to cause serious physical injury) unless they first acquitted Suarez of depraved indifference murder.
After the jury announced its verdict acquitting defendant of intentional murder, the trial judge stated, 3 Similarly, after the jury announced the guilty verdict for the depraved indifference murder count, the judge said, "Don't consider the fourth count [intentional manslaughter (intent to cause serious physical injury)] because I instructed the jury not to consider any —" (emphasis added). At that point, the court clerk interrupted the judge, stating A poll confirmed the verdict's unanimity, and the judge dismissed the jurors. He subsequently sentenced Suarez to a term of 20 years to life in prison.
Suarez appealed his conviction to the Appellate Division. There he argued that his conviction of depraved indifference murder was legally insufficient because his conduct was, in fact, intentional, and therefore could not have been reckless. The Appellate Division affirmed Suarez's conviction, giving as its reason that "[t]he jury could have reasonably concluded, particularly if it credited portions of [Suarez's] testimony, that when [he] inflicted several knife wounds upon his girlfriend during a struggle, her death was not the result of any intentional conduct, but instead resulted from conduct satisfying the elements of depraved indifference murder" (People v. Suarez, 13 A.D.3d 320, 320-321, 788 N.Y.S.2d 37 [1st Dept.2004]).
A Judge of this Court subsequently granted Suarez leave to appeal. We reversed his conviction for depraved indifference murder on the ground of legal insufficiency. In so doing, we observed that
(People v. Suarez, 6 N.Y.3d 202, 216, 811 N.Y.S.2d 267, 844 N.E.2d 721 [2005]).
Because the parties focused on the merits in their arguments before us and the Appellate Division "had no occasion to address the significant legal arguments bearing on the appropriate remedy," we remitted for "full briefing and consideration and for [the Appellate Division] to exercise its corrective action powers under CPL 470.20" (id.).
On remittal, the Appellate Division recognized that the "question of remedy [was] a critical and potentially recurring issue, given the widespread use of the depraved indifference murder statute" before "a recent series of Court of Appeals decisions that seek to provide a clearer understanding of the criminal liability contemplated by the term `depraved indifference' and thereby to foster appropriate use of criminal charges based upon this theory" (People v. Suarez, 40 A.D.3d 143, 144, 832 N.Y.S.2d 532 [1st Dept.2007] [citations omitted]). The court phrased the "primary" question on remittitur as
"whether, given [Suarez's] acquittal of intentional murder and the Court of Appeals' reversal of [his] conviction of depraved indifference murder, the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the Federal and State Constitutions, New York Criminal Procedure Law double jeopardy provisions and/or the doctrine of collateral estoppel bar [Suarez] from now being tried for intentional manslaughter in the first degree, a charge included in the indictment, and submitted to but not considered by the jury" (id. at 145-146, 832 N.Y.S.2d 532).
With one Justice dissenting, the Appellate Division concluded that there was no constitutional, statutory or collateral estoppel bar to Suarez's retrial for intentional manslaughter.
The court first remarked that the "tenor of the Court of Appeals' decision in [Suarez] [was] that the trial court erroneously submitted the depraved indifference murder count to the jury, since it was not supported by...
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