100 A.D.2d 637 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1984
Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Albany County (Harris, J.), rendered September 11,1981, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crime of murder in the second degree. 11 During the evening of March 16, 1981, Diane Morton, defendant’s estranged wife, was shot and killed at her home in the City of Albany. Defendant was indicted for murder in the second degree for intentionally causing the death of Diane Morton (Penal Law, § 125.25, subd 1 [intentional murder]). At trial, defendant did not deny that he fired the shots which killed his wife; rather, defendant offered evidence to establish that he did not have the requisite culpable mental state to commit intentional murder. Specifically, defendant sought to show that at the time of the shooting he was suffering from hypoglycemia, a condition resulting from his having taken an excessive amount of insulin to control his diabetes, which rendered him, in effect, intoxicated and incapable of forming the requisite intent (see Penal Law, § 15.25). Defendant requested that manslaughter in the second degree (Penal Law, § 125.15, subd 1 [reckless manslaughter]) and criminally negligent homicide (Penal Law, § 125.10) be charged to the jury as lesser included offenses of intentional murder. After County Court denied his request, defendant was found guilty as charged and a term of incarceration of 25 years to life was imposed. On this appeal, defendant raises several grounds of error and, because we conclude that it was error for County Court to have refused defendant’s request to charge, in the alternative to intentional murder, the lesser included offense of reckless manslaughter, we reverse. K Initially, we note that the Penal Law has established a hierarchy of culpable mental states with “criminal negligence” as the lowest or least culpable mental state, “recklessly” as the next highest, and “intentionally” as the highest or most
. “Knowingly” is actually the second highest culpable mental state (see Penal Law, § 15.05, subd 2) but, because “knowingly” is not a required mental state of the crimes with which we are concerned, it has been omitted from this discussion.
. We note that People v Green (supra) was decided after the judgment herein was rendered.