Split NY appeals court upholds manslaughter conviction

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In a split decision, a state appeals court has upheld a manslaughter conviction.

Defendant Jimmie Wright was convicted in May 2019 before state Supreme Court Justice Charles A. Schiano Jr. of first-degree manslaughter.

Wright appealed and the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, voted 4-1 to affirm the conviction.

“We conclude that the verdict is not against the weight of the evidence,” the majority wrote.

“We reject defendant’s contention that Supreme Court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the second degree,” the majority wrote.

A judge may submit to the jury any lesser included offense “if there is a reasonable view of the evidence which would support a finding that the defendant committed such lesser offense but did not commit the greater offense,” the majority wrote.

Second-degree manslaughter is a lesser included offense of second-degree murder, which Wright was charged with in the indictment.

“The question simply is whether on any reasonable view of the evidence it is possible for the trier of the facts to acquit the defendant on the higher count and still find him guilty on the lesser one,” the majority wrote.

The conviction stems from an altercation involving numerous individuals. During the fight, Wright ran up to the victim from behind and hit him in the head with a baseball bat, fracturing his skull.

“We conclude that there is no reasonable view of the evidence that would support a finding that defendant acted recklessly rather than intentionally,” the majority wrote.

“We reject defendant’s contention that defense counsel was ineffective by failing in the pretrial omnibus motion to seek suppression of the identification testimony as unreliable inasmuch as that argument would have had little or no chance of success,” they wrote.

“There is no merit to defendant’s remaining allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel,” the majority wrote.

Justice E. Jeannette Ogden dissented and voted to reverse the conviction.

“In my view, Supreme Court erred in declining to charge manslaughter in the second degree as a lesser included offense,” Ogden wrote.

“I would therefore reverse the judgment and dismiss the indictment without prejudice to the People to re-present any appropriate charges to another grand jury,” she wrote.

“Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to defendant, as we must, I conclude that there is a reasonable view of the evidence supporting the conclusion that defendant acted recklessly, i.e., he was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk but did not intend to cause the death of another person, and defendant was thus entitled to that charge,” Ogden wrote.

“This is particularly true inasmuch as the jury acquitted defendant of murder in the second degree and instead convicted him of the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree,” she wrote.

“I therefore conclude that the court erred in refusing to charge the jury with the requested lesser included charge of manslaughter in the second degree,” she wrote.

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