People v. Greenidge
This text of 2025 NY Slip Op 51546(U) (People v. Greenidge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York County Court, Tompkins County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
People v Greenidge (2025 NY Slip Op 51546(U)) [*1]
| People v Greenidge |
| 2025 NY Slip Op 51546(U) [87 Misc 3d 1212(A)] |
| Decided on October 1, 2025 |
| County Court, Tompkins County |
| Miller, J. |
| Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. |
| This opinion is uncorrected and will not be published in the printed Official Reports. |
Decided on October 1, 2025
People of the
State of New York
against Jerimiah Greenidge, RASHID MACK and DAQUAN GRAVES, Defendants. |
Ind. No. 70284-24(A), (B), (C)
Tasha Kates, Esq., counsel for Defendant Mack
Hannah Widercranz, Esq., counsel for Defendant Mack
Aubrey D. Hetznecker, Esq., counsel for Defendant Graves
Jacob P. McNamara, Esq., counsel for Defendant Graves
J. Justin Woods, Esq., counsel for Defendant Greenidge
Andrew J. Bonavia, Esq., Tompkins County Deputy District Attorney
Scott A. Miller, J.
Defendant moves pursuant to CPLR § 2221(d) for leave to reargue this Court's Decision and Order dated August 5, 2025, which denied his motion to dismiss the indictment for legal insufficiency. For the reasons that follow, the motion for leave is DENIED.
A motion for leave to reargue "shall be based upon matters of fact or law allegedly [*2]overlooked or misapprehended by the court in determining the prior motion..." CPLR § 2221(d)(2). Such a motion " . . . does not afford an unsuccessful party with an opportunity to advance arguments different from those proffered in the original application [internal citation omitted]." People v. Lopez, 235 AD2d 496, 497 (2nd Dept. 1997).
ANALYSIS
Defendant Mack asserts that the Court "misapprehended" the grand jury record by referencing coordinated transportation, tactical reconnoitering, immediate regrouping, and Mack's role as a lookout. Defendant's Motion to Reargue, Affirmation of Counsel pp. 3-5. But those terms were nothing more than shorthand for rational inferences the Court found the grand jury could permissibly draw from the sequence of events. Counsel's semantic quarrel does not identify any overlooked evidence or misapprehension of fact; it simply disagrees with the Court's inferential framing.
In substance, Defendant Mack challenges the inferences this Court found that could rationally be drawn from the evidence. As the People correctly note, defendant's counsel "misunderstands the role of the court at this stage of inquiry and its standard of review." People's Opp. ¶ 8. In truth, the motion identifies no matter of fact or law that this Court overlooked. It is nothing more than a quarrel with the inferential reasoning this Court employed in its prior decision — a disagreement that CPLR § 2221(d) does not permit. A reargument motion is a narrow procedural mechanism to correct something the Court missed. Defendant Mack points to no overlooked authority and no misapprehended fact, but only presses again the very points already considered and rejected.
The controlling legal standard is well established. As the Court of Appeals has made clear, the inquiry upon a motion to dismiss for legal insufficiency is "whether the facts, if proven, and the inferences that logically flow from those facts supply proof of every element of the charged crimes [internal citation omitted]." People v. Bello, 92 NY2d 523, 526 (1998). The sufficiency of the evidence "is properly determined by inquiring whether the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the People, if unexplained and uncontradicted, would warrant conviction by a petit jury." People v. Jensen, 86 NY2d 248, 251 (1995), quoting People v. Jennings, 69 NY2d 103, 114 (1986). And critically, "[t]hat other, innocent inferences could possibly be drawn from the facts is irrelevant on this pleading stage inquiry, as long as the Grand Jury could rationally have drawn the guilty inference [emphasis added]." People v. Deegan, 69 NY2d 976, 979 (1987).
This Court is well aware that there may be innocent explanations that could also be rationally inferred from the grand jury record as to Defendant Mack's conduct. But that is not the legal sufficiency standard of review. The proper inquiry is whether there exists at least one rational line of reasoning by which the grand jury could have inferred guilt. Here, such a line plainly exists: the evidence permitted the inference that Mack knew Greenidge possessed a firearm, knew Greenidge was going to use it, and, acting with the mental culpability required for the commission of the offenses, intentionally aided him by serving as a lookout and remaining positioned to assist, thereby sharing a community of purpose with his co-defendants within the meaning of Penal Law § 20.00, which provides that a person is criminally liable for the conduct of another when, "acting with the mental culpability required for the commission thereof, he [*3]solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or intentionally aids such person to engage in such conduct." Mack's conduct—traveling with Greenidge to West Village, concealing himself near the shooting site, remaining positioned during the gunfire, and fleeing jointly with the shooter—made little sense unless he was acting in concert with Greenidge.
Defendant also argues that there was no direct video evidence of coordinated transportation or regrouping. But, as the People correctly emphasize, "[i]nferences by their very nature are not based on direct evidence of the inference and the standard of review is not 'video or it didn't happen.'" People's Opp. ¶ 10. The sequence of events speaks for itself: the defendants departed Quik Shoppe together in the red Subaru; thirty minutes later, the same Subaru reconnoitered West Village and exited; three minutes after that, Greenidge approached on foot from the same direction while Mack was concealed in the bushes; after the shooting, Greenidge and Mack fled together up the same road the Subaru had taken; and less than an hour later, Graves still driving the Subaru, arrived with both of them at Arthaus. As the People note, "it is plainly obvious that the grand jury evidence fairly established (as one inference) that defendants coordinated transportation to and from the crime scene." People's Opp. ¶ 11.
Nor has defendant identified controlling authority overlooked by this Court. The First Department's decision in People v. Coke, 238 AD3d 71 (1st Dept. 2025), was cited by defendant in prior briefing. Even assuming arguendo it merited explicit discussion, Coke involved post-conviction appellate review under a fundamentally different standard, and the facts are materially distinguishable. In Coke, although there was evidence that the defendant was seen with his codefendants earlier in the day and later in a vehicle after the crime, there was no evidence that he was present at the crime scene itself. Moreover, as the Coke court noted, " . . . none of the surveillance footage shows defendant in, entering, or exiting [the suspected getaway vehicle]" prior to the offense. Id. at 74. By contrast, here the grand jury heard evidence that defendant Mack's GPS ankle monitor placed him at West Village at the precise moment co-defendant Greenidge fired multiple shots, and surveillance footage showed Mack getting in and out of the red Subaru both before and after the shooting. Those facts, absent in
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2025 NY Slip Op 51546(U), 87 Misc. 3d 1212(A), Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-greenidge-nytompkinsctyct-2025.