People v. McPhersonPeople v. McPherson
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Respondent, v FRANKLIN MCPHERSON, Appellant. [932 NYS2d 85]—
Thereafter, at approximately 3:30 a.m., the defendant‘s vehicle was seen traveling west in the eastbound lanes of the Southern State Parkway at a speed of 70 to 75 miles per hour. According to numerous witnesses, the defendant‘s vehicle traveled in the wrong direction from about exit 19 to exit 13, a distance of approximately five miles. A witness observed the defendant driving directly at him while changing lanes. That witness had to immediately pull his vehicle onto the shoulder to avoid a collision. This witness saw that the defendant сontinued driving the wrong way, and the witness observed the other vehicles on the parkway “[s]plit apart” in order to get away from the defendant. The witness testified that the defendant “was steadily going, not braking, nothing. He was just going. He was speeding.” Meanwhile, another witness, Police Sergeant Edward Schulze,
Near exit 13, the defendant‘s vehicle, without ever having slowed dоwn, collided with the victim‘s vehicle, killing the victim instantly and incinerating the victim‘s vehicle. When emergency services and police arrived on the scene and attempted to remove the defendant from his damaged vehicle, the defendant was agitated and his breath emitted a strong odor of alcohol. Following the defendant‘s arrest, a blood sample taken from him at 4:49 a.m., just over an hour after the accident, indicated that his blood alcohol content (hereinafter BAC) was 0.19%.
After the defendant was removed from his vehicle, the police began conducting an inventory search of the vehicle. The discovery of several 9-millimeter rounds in the trunk, however, transformed the search from inventory to investigatory, during which the police recovered a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, what was later determined tо be .395 grams of cocaine beneath the front passenger seat, and 41 rounds of 9-millimeter bullets contained in a partially loaded magazine and a box in the trunk. The gun recovered from the defendant‘s vehicle matched the shell casings found in the parking lot near the nightclub.
The defendant‘s contention that the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction of murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree is unpreserved for appellate review (see
We disagree with our dissenting colleague‘s view that there was no evidence that the defendant deliberately and purposefully proceeded the wrong way down the parkway, in recogni-tion
The defendant asserts that his BAC content and intoxication rendered him unable to form the mental state of depraved indifference to human life. To the contrary, the evidence demonstrated that the defendant helped Taylor leave the nightclub. In addition, McCalla testified that when the defendant left the nightclub, the defendant “looked okay to [him],” “didn‘t look like intoxicated to me [sic],” and that the defendant “seemed like he could handle himself.” The evidence did not establish that the defendant was too intoxicated to form the culpable mental state necessary to prove depraved indifference (see People v Heidgen, 87 AD3d at 1022 [involving an intoxicated motorist traveling the wrong way on a parkway, stating that the evidence “did not establish that the defendant was intoxicated to a degree оf total oblivion or mania” so as to preclude the defendant from forming the requisite mental state]; cf. People v Coon, 34 AD3d 869, 870 [2006] [after a nonjury trial, trial court found the defendant “suffered an atypical idiopathic reaction to the substance such that, at the time of the attack, he was experiencing cocaine intoxication delirium“]). Thus, the record supports a view of the evidence that the defendant was coherent and able to form the requisite mens rea prior to leaving the parking lot.
Perhaps instructive on the import of the defendant‘s BAC content is People v Wells (53 AD3d 181 [2008]). In Wells, the intoxicated defendant drove through a red light, striking another vehicle and killing a passenger in that vehicle. The evidence adduced in that case further showed that, prior to the fatal collision, the defendant had struck a parked car and narrowly missed hitting аnother vehicle when he sped through a red traffic light. Following a nonjury trial, the defendant was convicted of, among other things, depraved indifference murder and assault in the first degree. On appeal, the Appellate Division, First Department, held that, applying the standards set forth in either People v Register (60 NY2d 270 [1983], cert denied 466 US 953 [1984]) or People v Feingold (7 NY3d 288 [2006]), the evidence was legally sufficient and the verdict was not
Here, the evidence adduced at trial distinguishеs this case from the cases relied upon by the defendant, including People v Prindle (16 NY3d 768 [2011]). In Prindle, the defendant, who was concerned about being arrested for the theft of a snowplow blade, led police on a 2 1/2 to 4 mile chase while driving in and out of an oncoming lane of traffic. Ultimately, the defendant drove his van into another vehicle, killing a passenger. Also, in Prindle there was evidence that the defendant was attempting to evade the other cars inasmuch as he crossed over the double solid line and back numerous times. The Court of Appeals in Prindle determined that the evidence was legally insufficient to establish depraved indifference murder. Here, by contrast, the record does not suggest that the subject accident was the result of the defendant‘s attempt to flee from the police, and there was factual proof that the defendant had several opportunities to cease his procession towards oncoming traffic.
Similarly, People v Valencia (14 NY3d 927 [2010]), which also involved an intoxicated motorist traveling the wrong way on a parkway, can be distinguished. In Valencia, following a bench trial, the finder of fact made a specific finding that the defendant‘s intoxication rendered him “oblivious” to his travel upon a highway prior to the accident to form the culpable mental state of depraved indifference to human life at the time he collided with the complainants’ vehicles. Thus, the trial court determined that the evidence did not support his conviction of assault in the first degree. That factual finding was not disturbed by this Court (58 AD3d 879 [2009]), and the Court of Appeals was without power to review it. Although the decision by the Court of Appeals in Valencia does not so indicate, the only legal issue addressеd in the briefs and argued before the Court of Appeals was whether the defendant‘s intoxication was too temporally remote from his driving to permit his conviction of depraved indifference assault (14 NY3d 927). Here, the defendant‘s conviction of depraved indifference murder was not based upon his decision to begin drinking with knowledge that he
We do not believe that Prindle and Valencia stand for the proposition that a defendant who is per se intoxicated (see
Our dissenting colleague correctly notes that, in 2007, the Legislature created the new crime of aggravated vehicular homicide, a class B felony (see
Under the facts presented here, the defendant‘s action of driving his vehicle towards oncoming traffic on the parkway for approximately five miles constituted reckless conduct which carried with it a grave risk of death and evinced a depraved state of mind. The negation of this intent, by extreme intoxication, is not supported by the record. For example, the defendant helped Taylor into the car, he searched for his missing drugs, and McCalla testified that the defendant did not appear intoxicated. Thus, we cannot conclude that the evidence of the defendant‘s guilt of murder in the second degree was legally insufficient to support that conviction. Moreover, upon our independent review pursuant to
Likewise, we find that the evidence was legally sufficient to establish the defendant‘s guilt of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and that the verdict of guilt as to that crime was not against the weight of evidence.
Contrary to the defendant‘s contention, the hearing court properly denied that branch of his omnibus motion which was to suppress the physical evidence seized from his vehicle. The evidence adduced at the suppression hearing demonstrated that the search of the defendant‘s vehicle was authorized as a warrantless search falling within the automobile and emergency exceptions to the warrant requirement (see Arizona v Gant, 556 US 332 [2009]; People v Molnar, 98 NY2d 328, 332 [2002]; People v Blasich, 73 NY2d 673, 678 [1989]; People v Belton, 55 NY2d 49, 53-55 [1982]; People v Mitchell, 39 NY2d 173 [1976], cert denied 426 US 953 [1976]).
Further, the defendant was not deprived of the effective assistance of counsel, as defense counsel provided meaningful repre-sentation
The sentence imposed was not excessive (see People v Suitte, 90 AD2d 80, 85-86 [1982]). Florio, J.P., Dickerson and Leventhal, JJ., concur.
Belen, J., dissents and votes to modify the judgment, on the law, on the facts, and as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, by reducing the conviction of murder in the second degree to manslaughter in the second degree, and vacating the sentence imposed on that count and, as so modified, to affirm the judgment and remit the matter to the County Court, Nassau County, for resentencing on that count with the following memorandum.
Belen, J. (dissenting). The defendant spent the evening of October 18, 2007, drinking with his girlfriend, cousin, and a friend at a nightclub in Hempstead, New York. According to the friend, in a parking lot near the nightclub later that evening, the defendant became upset at having lost something, appeared to be looking for the lost item in the trunk of his vehicle, and began arguing with his girlfriend. At approximately 3:15 a.m., several witnesses heard gunshots, although no witness reported seeing the defendant fire a gun. The defendant then angrily ordered the friend to leave with his girlfriend. The friend complied and drove the defendant‘s girlfriend home. The defendant and his cousin then entered the defendant‘s vehicle, with the defendant driving. Meanwhile, when police officers arrived at the parking lot only minutes later, at about 3:20 a.m., the defendant was no longеr there; the officers recovered several 9-millimeter shell casings in the parking lot.
Minutes later, at approximately 3:30 a.m., the defendant‘s vehicle was seen traveling west in the eastbound lanes of the Southern State Parkway at a speed of 70 to 75 miles per hour. According to numerous witnesses, the defendant‘s vehicle traveled in the wrong direction from approximately exit 19 to exit 13, a distance of approximately five miles, periodically changing lanes, which forced other drivers to swerve aside to avoid a collision. Around exit 13, the defendant‘s vehicle, without ever having slowed down, collided with the victim‘s vehicle, killing the victim instantly and incinerating the victim‘s vehicle. The collision totaled the defendant‘s vehicle, with the defendant and his cousin pinned inside.
When emergency services and police arrived and began attempting to remove thе defendant from his vehicle, the defendant was agitated and his breath emitted a strong odor of alcohol. After the defendant was arrested, a blood sample taken from
“The standard for reviewing the legal sufficiency of evidence in a criminal case is whether ‘after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt’ ” (People v Contes, 60 NY2d 620, 621 [1983], quoting Jackson v Virginia, 443 US 307, 319 [1979]).
Under the Penal Law, “[a] person acts recklessly with respect to a result or to a circumstance . . . when he [or she] is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that such result will occur or that such circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that disregard thereof constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation” (
In 2007, the Legislature created the new crime of aggravated vehicular homicide (see L 2007, ch 345), a class B felony punishable by an indeterminate prison sentence ranging from 8 1/3 to 25 years of imprisonment (see
A person who acts with depraved indifference has no specific, conscious intent to cause a specific result, i.e., the death of another person or persons, but possesses the mens rea of being indifferent to, unconcerned with, and/or acting with complete disregard of the grave risks of death created by his or her conduct (see
The horrific consequences of the defendant‘s reckless conduct of driving a vehicle while highly intoxicated cannot be understated. However, for the reasons set forth below, as a matter of law, the evidence was not legally sufficient to establish that he acted with depraved indifference. Accordingly, upon reaching this issue in the interest of justice, I would reduce his conviction for depraved indifference murder to manslaughter in the second degree, vacate the sentence imposed on that count, and remit the matter for resentencing on that count.
To reiterate, the defendant, who had a blood alcohol content more than twice the legal limit, drove at night on a parkway for several miles in the wrong direction at a high rate of speed. Although several oncoming drivers swerved out of the defendant‘s path over the course of several miles, the People produced no evidence at trial which demonstrated, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant understood that he was driving the wrong way down the parkway prior to the head-on collision, with utter disregard for the consequences, as might be evident with, for example, evidence that the defendant‘s vehicle continued on its course after colliding with an object or other vehicle (see People v Gomez, 65 NY2d 9 [1985]; cf. People v Carrington, 30 AD3d 175 [2006]). In short, there is no evidence that the defendant deliberately drove his vehicle the wrong way down the рarkway (see People v France, 57 AD2d 432, 434 [1977]).
Moreover, even accepting that the defendant was attempting to flee the police who responded to reports of gunfire in the parking lot near the nightclub, from which one could infer that his reckless driving resulted from his attempt to elude capture
The majority‘s attempt to distinguish People v Valencia (14 NY3d 927 [2010]) is unavailing. In Valencia, the evidence demonstrated that the defendant‘s blood alcohol content was approximately three times more than the legal limit, he drove at night in the wrong direction of the Wantagh State Parkway at a high rate of speed, and did not stop or slow down despite attempts by other drivers to warn him of the dangers he was creating. After traveling four miles, the defendant crashed head-on into one vehicle and then careened into another car. The Court of Appeals held that such evidence, which is factually indistinguishable from the instant case, demonstrated intoxication and reckless driving, but not depraved indifference and, accordingly, affirmed this Court‘s vacatur of the defendant‘s conviction and the sentence imposed thereon for assault in the first degree (id., affg 58 AD3d 879 [2009]).
I am also unconvinced by the majority‘s attempt to limit the holding of Valencia based on the assertion that the briefs submitted to the Court of Appeals argued only “whether the defendant‘s intoxication was too temporally remote from his driving to permit his conviction of depraved indifference assault.” The majority (memorandum) opinion in Valencia is clear, stating, “[t]here is insufficient evidence to support a conviction for depraved indifference assault. The trial evidencе established only that defendant was extremely intoxicated and did not establish that he acted with the culpable mental state of depraved indifference” (14 NY3d at 927-928). The majority opinion clearly did not limit itself to the issue of temporal remoteness between the defendant‘s act of drinking to the point of extreme intoxication and the later act of operating a vehicle.
Further, in her concurring opinion, Judge Graffeo explained:
“The Appellate Division reversed the first-degree assault conviction, concluding that defendant‘s state of mind before he drove home was too remote in time from the car crash. The reversal of that conviction reduced defendant‘s culpability from a class B felony to the class D felony of second-degree assault and a five-year determinate prison sentence.
“We are now affirming the reduction [of the conviction for assault in the first degree] to assault in the second degree, but on narrower grounds, with which I concur, because of the lack of evidence to support all the elements of depraved indifference assault” (id. at 928 [Graffeo, J., concurring] [emphasis added]).
As one commentator has explained:
“Although intoxication will not negate recklessness, it can negate the additional mens rea required for ‘depraved indifference.’ In People v. Valencia, the Court of Appeals held that the culpable mental state of depraved indifference was not established by evidence showing only that the defendant was extremely intoxicated when his driving caused a fatal accident. The defendant‘s emotional state before or after the crime, which was previously considered relevant to recklessness but not to ‘depraved indifference,’ is presumably now relevant to both mens reas” (Fahey, 6 NY Prac, Criminal Law § 6:13, at 365, 2011 Supp, at 68 [3d ed] [footnotes omitted]).
Here, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, there is nothing from which a jury could reasonably infer that the defendant possessed the mens rea necessary for depraved indifference: a tragic combination of both awareness and total disregard for the fact that he was driving at high speed the wrong way down the parkway, which was conduct that placed both the defendant and others traveling eastbound on the parkway at grave risk of death. In effect, to convict the defendant of depraved indifference murder, the jury would have to find that the defendant was suicidal. There is no basis for such a finding. Rather, the evidence indicates that the defendant was highly intoxicated and upset with his girlfriend and/or with having lost something in the parking lot near the nightclub.
Moreover, even accepting the majority‘s contention that the defendant‘s intoxication did not render him incapable of forming the requisite mens rea of depraved indifference, there is
“Reckless homicide cannot be elevated into depraved indifference murder merely because the actions of the defendant created a risk of death, however grave or substantial that risk may have been . . . ‘[C]ircumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life’ are not established by recklessness coupled only with actions that carry even an inevitable risk of death” (People v Suarez, 6 NY3d at 213-214, quoting
In sum, there is no valid line of reasoning that could support the jury‘s conclusion that the defendant possessed the mental culpability required for depraved indifference murder.
Any reliance by my colleagues in the majority on People v Wells (53 AD3d 181 [2008]) would be misplaced. In Wells, the defendant, with a blood alcohol content of between 0.25% and 0.27%, drove erratically and at an excessive speed through the streets of the lower east side of Manhattan before 3:00 a.m. on
I am similarly unpersuaded by the dicta in Wells that the depraved indifference murder conviction would be upheld under the current depraved indifference standard of People v Feingold (7 NY3d 288 [2006]; see People v Wells, 53 AD3d at 192), which is the standard applicable here. In finding that if applied, the Feingold standard would also be met, the Wells Court stated that the “defendant‘s mental state at the time of the collision . . . [was] not dispositive;” rather, the defendant‘s “mens rea of depraved indifference . . . [was] established by circumstantial evidence demonstrating that defendant made a conscious decision to drink and then, after consuming an excessive amount of alcohol to the point of becoming ‘totally wasted,’ to drive on city streets at a high rate of speed through red traffic lights, thereby creating a grave risk of death to pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles” (id. at 193). We have previously rejected the temporal remoteness between the actus reus of drinking alcohol to the point of inebriation and the mens rea at the point of collision (see People v Valencia, 58 AD3d 879 [2009], affd 14 NY3d 927 [2010]).
In addition to finding the evidence of second degree (depraved indifference) murder legally insufficient, I also find that the conviction on that count is against the weight of the evidence. Although we have a responsibility to conduct an independent review of the weight of the evidence (see
The People‘s medical expert, Dr. William Closson, testified that a blood alcohol content of 0.19% would negatively affect an “individual‘s cognitive abilities, meaning the thought process,
He specified that an intoxicated person‘s vision becomes blurred and he or she develops “tunnel vision,” meaning he or she “cannot see as effectively to either side,” but essentially sees only “straight ahead.” Moreover, Dr. Closson explained that an intoxicated person‘s perception and responses to stimuli are delayed. Specifically, while a sobеr individual‘s response to stimuli would be “a fraction of a second,” an intoxicated individual responding to the same stimuli would react in one to three seconds.
Dr. Closson also testified that an intoxicated person‘s ability to do “divided attention tasks,” such as driving, is “most affected” by alcohol. Thus, while driving requires equal attention to steering, acceleration, braking, direction signals, and responding to objects in the environment, an intoxicated person may devote all of his or her attention to only one or two of those tasks. Although he testified on direct examination that an intoxicated person may be more inclined to participate in risky behavior, such as driving the wrong way on a roadway, on cross-examination, he conceded that an intoxicated person may be unaware that he or she is driving the wrong way on a roadway.
Although the defendant‘s friend testified that in his view, the defendant was not too intoxicated when they exited the nightclub together, the defense conceded at trial the accuracy of the blood test results, which showed the defendant‘s blood alcohol content to be 0.19% over one hour after the incident. Further, an officer who arrived at the scene moments after the crash described the inside of the defendant‘s car as having an “extremely strong odor” of alcohol. After the defendant was removed from his vehicle and placed under arrest for driving while intoxicated, the officer described the smell of alcohol coming directly from the defendant.
Significantly, the People presented no evidence that the defendant intentionally entered the parkway in the wrong direction and/or continued to drive the wrong way after realizing that he was driving against traffic. Indeed, one witness, an off-duty sergeant for the New York City Police Department, testified that he swerved out of his lane to avoid being hit by the de-
Although the People presented the testimony of numerous witnesses who saw the defendant‘s vehicle traveling in the wrong direction on the parkway, none of those witnesses‘s tеstimony established that the defendant understood that he was traveling in the wrong direction. While some witnesses attempted to warn the defendant of his mistake by honking their horns, there is no evidence that the defendant heard those warnings or understood that the warnings were intended for him. Nor did the People‘s collision reconstruction expert provide any testimony indicating that the defendant may have intentionally driven the wrong way down the parkway. In sum, no credible evidence demonstrated that the defendant deliberately drove his vehicle the wrong way with an utter disregard for the value of human life, and thus acted with depraved indifference. Accordingly, I agree with Justice Cohen‘s statement in his dissent in People v Heidgen:
“I cannot agree with the majority‘s attempts to distinguish the Court of Appeals’ decisions in People v Prindle (16 NY3d 768 [2011]), and People v Valencia (14 NY3d 927 [2010]), from the facts before us. To distinguish People v Prindle would necessitate a finding that the evasion of police vehicles in the course of a high-speed chase while sober is a less culpable state of mind than driving on the wrong side of a highway at 70 miles per hour, at night, in a highly intoxicated state. Likewise, distinguishing People v Valencia necessitates finding, in the evidence presented to the jury, that the defendant was neither totally oblivious nor incapable of apprehending the gravity of his actions due to his intoxication. I do not subscribe to such conclusions” (People v Heidgen, 87 AD3d at 1034 [Cohen, J., dissenting]).
In sum, the weight of the evidence does not support a finding that the defendant, acting with depraved indifference, i.e., “an utter disregard for the value of human life” (People v Suarez, 6 NY3d at 214), knowingly drove the wrong way down the parkway. The defendant may have been the instrument of death. However, there is no evidence that he knowingly acted with utter disregard for the grave risk of death or serious injury he was creating. Rather, the evidence established that the defendant
For the reasons set forth above, I would modify the judgment by reducing the defendant‘s conviction of second degree murder to manslaughter in the second degree (see