People v. RodriguezPeople v. Rodriguez
After receiving a 911 call from defendant indicating that his two-year-old niece (hereinafter the victim) was missing, police arrived at defendant‘s residence to find his wife holding the victim‘s body after it had been discovered in the yard nearby. An autopsy performed the following day revealed that the victim‘s death was caused by blunt force trauma to her head. Thereafter, defendant was charged in a sealed indictment with one count of murder in the second degree. Following a jury trial, defendant was convicted as charged and, thereafter, sentenced to a prison term of 25 years to life. Defendant appeals, and we affirm.
Defendant‘s challenges to the legal sufficiency of the evidence and the weight of the evidence in regard to the proof as to his identity as the perpetrator is without merit given the overwhelming evidence establishing his guilt. According to the wife‘s testimony, on the morning in question, defendant assisted the other children in the home in preparing for school and getting on the school bus. According to her, defendant returned to bed thereafter and informed her that the victim was still sleeping. Therefore, at that point, the only three people in the home were defendant, the wife and the victim.
According to the wife, during that same morning, defendant appeared to receive two telephone calls from their neighbor regarding the fact that defendant had previously borrowed power tools from him. These apparent conversations prompted defendant to leave the bedroom on two separate occasions for short periods of time, and defendant indicated, on both occasions, that he was leaving the bedroom to return tools to the neighbor. The neighbor testified that, on the same morning, he did receive a voice mail message on his phone from defendant regarding the tools. However, the neighbor further testified that he was not at his home that morning and that he did not
Police investigation thereafter uncovered various evidence relevant to establishing the identity of the murderer. Evidence introduced at trial established that the police found defendant‘s work boots in the master bedroom of the home and that DNA analysis of a blood spot on those boots revealed that the blood came from the victim.1 Further evidence established that a sink in an upstairs bathroom had traces of blood on it and that there were bloody paper towels in a garbage receptacle in that same bathroom. The washing machine in the home contained a single item of clothing. That item was a white, damp men‘s T-shirt that smelled of bleach and had a red stain. The stain was later determined to be blood, and that stain contained a DNA contribution from the victim.
Despite blood spatter analysis that indicated that the victim had been killed in the yard outside of the home, the police found a blood stain on the sill of a window in a guest bedroom. An air conditioner had also apparently been removed from the same window, as it was sitting on the floor nearby. Expert testimony established that this blood was directly applied to the window sill from some source.2
In canvassing the bloody leaves at and around the location where the victim‘s body was discovered, a set of car keys was discovered underneath the leaves. The wife‘s testimony established that those keys were the sole set of keys to defendant‘s and her car and that she had not driven the car in the two prior days. In a statement to police, defendant indicated that he had driven the car the night before the victim‘s death.
The foregoing evidence reveals that defendant lied to his wife about his whereabouts on the morning in question and that, shortly after the victim‘s murder, two items of defendant‘s wardrobe were found with blood and the victim‘s DNA on them. One of those items appeared to have been recently cleaned with bleach. Additional evidence found within the house indicated further efforts to clean up blood. Although defendant had not interacted with the victim‘s body when it was discovered during his search with his wife, car keys last in defendant‘s possession were found underneath the bloody leaves surrounding the victim‘s body. Considered as a whole, the evidence introduced at trial overwhelmingly establishes that defendant was the perpetrator of the victim‘s murder (see People v Miles, 15 AD3d 686, 687-688 [2005], lv denied 4 NY3d 855 [2005]). Accordingly, his arguments that the evidence was legally insufficient and that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence are without merit.
Further, we reject defendant‘s contention that County Court‘s denial of his motion for the People to disclose polygraph data from an exam of his wife merits reversal. To the extent that County Court explicitly agreed with defendant that the question and answer portion of the polygraph was subject to disclosure, this inquiry solely focuses on the physiological data collected during the examination and any interpretations of it. Assuming, without deciding, that a polygraph examination is a “scientific test or experiment” subject to disclosure (
Next, we also reject defendant‘s argument that his statement to a child protective services (hereinafter CPS) worker should have been suppressed. Defendant‘s contention that his right to counsel was violated during such an interview depends on whether the CPS worker was an agent of the police. “‘[S]ocial workers are generally not agents of the police,’ although they may be considered agents under certain circum
We further conclude that none of the wife‘s testimony was barred by the marital privilege. As is relevant to this inquiry, testimony by a spouse with regard to observations and communications that constitute mere “daily and ordinary exchanges” between spouses are not subject to the protections of the marital privilege (People v Melski, 10 NY2d 78, 80 [1961]; see People v Vargas, 60 AD3d 1236, 1239 [2009], lv denied 13 NY3d 750 [2009]). In any event, a defendant waives any protection afforded by the marital privilege when he or she reveals the substance of otherwise protected communications (see People v Parker, 49 AD3d 974, 978 [2008], lv denied 10 NY3d 868 [2008]; see also People v Jacob, 117 AD3d 1079, 1080 [2014], lv denied 23 NY3d 1063 [2014]). None of the wife‘s testimony that related to defendant‘s actions and statements on the day in question concerned communications that “would not have been made but for the absolute confidence in, and induced by, the marital relationship” (People v Wilson, 64 NY2d 634, 636 [1984] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]). Further, defendant essentially repeated the same facts as to those communications in the multiple statements that he thereafter made to third parties (see People v Parker, 49 AD3d at 978).
Defendant‘s contentions regarding erroneous evidentiary rulings and improper comments by the People during summation are unpreserved, and we decline to invoke our interest of justice jurisdiction to take corrective action. To the extent that defendant claims that the failure to preserve such contentions amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel, we disagree. Although the jury could have possibly inferred from the
Lahtinen, J.P., Egan Jr., Lynch and Devine, JJ., concur.
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.