NY appeals court reinstates murder charge in grandmother’s shooting

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A state appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling and reinstated a second-degree murder charge in the case of a defendant accused of fatally shooting her grandmother.

In September 2023, Erie County Court Judge Kenneth F. Case granted a motion to dismiss the indictment against defendant Jamien Harris

The Erie County District Attorney’s office appealed Case’s decision, and, in a decision released Friday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, reversed Case’s ruling and reinstated the indictment.

The primary appellate issue was whether Case improperly determined that the prosecution of the indictment was barred because the conduct underlying previous charges of firearm possession and the conduct underlying the charge of murder were part of the same criminal transaction, according to the Fourth Department decision.

The Fourth Department ruled that Case “improperly dismissed the indictment.”

The fatal shooting happened on Nov. 20, 2021, in the 90-year-old victim’s home. When police officers arrived at the scene, Harris “was found in the house and appeared to be in distress,” according to the decision.

Harris gave police officers conflicting accounts of what happened, but she consistently stated that “there were guns in the house that defendant had been playing with,” the court wrote.

A pistol and a revolver were recovered from the home. The prosecution presented evidence to a grand jury relating to the two guns.

The evidence included witness testimony from police officers about the crime scene, including that the victim appeared to have suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and about statements made to them by Harris.

Harris was indicted on two counts of criminal possession of a firearm, and she pleaded guilty to both counts.

Several months later, the prosecutor presented evidence to another grand jury relating to the murder.  The prosecutor presented similar testimony from the police officers who had testified to the first grand jury, along with additional statements made by Harris.

Harris was indicted on one count of second-degree murder.

Subsequently, Harris filed a motion to dismiss the indictment and Case granted the motion on the ground that the conduct underlying the charges of firearm possession and murder were part of the same criminal transaction and the prosecutor had sufficient evidence at the time of Harris’s guilty plea to convict her of murder.

On appeal, the prosecutor argued that the conduct underlying the charges of firearm possession was not part of the same criminal transaction as the conduct underlying the murder charge.

“We agree with the People,” the Fourth Department wrote.

Criminal Procedure Law Section 40.40 “prohibits a separate prosecution of joinable offenses that arise out of the same transaction and involve different and distinct elements,” according to the decision.

“We conclude that the conduct related to possession of the firearms and that related to the murder involved separate and distinct criminal acts that were not part of the same criminal transaction,” the court wrote.

“Thus, the murder count was properly charged on a separate accusatory instrument and the People did not violate CPL 40.40,” the court wrote.

Justice Stephen K. Lindley dissented and voted to affirm Case’s decision.

“In my view, County Court properly granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment,” he wrote.

“The forensic evidence showed that the victim had been shot once in the chest with a bullet from that revolver, and defendant admitted to the police that she fired a shot in the direction of the victim and may have hit her,” Lindley wrote.

Defendant also said: “I think the gun that killed grandma is the gun that I played with.”

The evidence would establish every element of second-degree murder, Lindley wrote.

“I conclude that defendant’s possession of the revolver and her alleged use of it to kill her grandmother are so closely related and connected in point of time and circumstance of commission as to constitute a single criminal incident,” Lindley wrote.

“Under the People’s theory they could have prosecuted defendant separately for three counts of criminal possession of a firearm with respect to the revolver:  One arising from defendant’s possession of the revolver in the house before she allegedly used it to shoot her grandmother; a second arising from her possession of the revolver to shoot her grandmother; and the third arising from her possession of the revolver in the house following the shooting,” Lindley wrote.

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