People v. Liccione

63 A.D.2d 305, 407 N.Y.S.2d 753, 1978 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 11346
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedJuly 13, 1978
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 63 A.D.2d 305 (People v. Liccione) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Liccione, 63 A.D.2d 305, 407 N.Y.S.2d 753, 1978 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 11346 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1978).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

Simons, J.

Defendant has been convicted of murder, second degree, arising from the death of his wife, Mary Liccione. He was not present when she was attacked and fatally stabbed, but before she died Mrs. Liccione told witnesses that defendant had hired [310]*310her assailant to kill her. Defendant’s conviction rests substantially upon her dying declarations and upon his admissions to the police and although urging several points on this appeal, the primary grounds urged for reversal concern the trial court’s denial of his motions to suppress this evidence.

In the early morning of June 16, 1975, defendant left his downstairs Rochester apartment for work. Later, about 8:30 a.m., his children left home for school. Mrs. Liccione was not feeling well that morning and after the children left she locked the storm door on a rear entryway to the kitchen and the kitchen door and returned to bed. The living room furniture had been pushed against the front door by her husband the night before and the only remaining door to the apartment, other than the kitchen door, was not usable. About five' minutes after she returned to bed, Mrs. Liccione heard a key turning in the kitchen doors. She went into the dining room to investigate and found a Black man standing there with a rifle. She attempted to take it away from him and during the ensuing struggle the rifle fired three times before the man dropped it. Mrs. Liccione tried to escape by breaking through a screened window but her assailant stabbed her several times as she did so. Neighbors, alerted by her screams and by the rifle shots, ran to the Liccione house and found Mrs. Liccione in the driveway below the broken window screen. When they told her that they would call her husband she protested, "No, that nigger told me he paid him, he paid”, "he made the nigger do this to me”, "that nigger told me my husband told him to do this to me”, "help me I am going to die”, "that nigger told me my husband told him to do this”, "he met the guy at work, they planned it at work”, "I am going to die, don’t let my husband have the kids”. Later that evening she repeated similar statements to her parents and the police at the hospital.

When Mrs. Liccione was examined by a doctor at the hospital, he discovered multiple stab wounds on her neck, shoulder, back and chest. She had lost a tremendous amount of blood and was in deep shock. The doctor was unable to obtain a blood pressure and in his opinion, Mrs. Liccione was dying. She remained hospitalized until she died from the stab wounds on June 24, 1975.

The police arrived at the Liccione apartment at about 8:45 a.m., shortly before decedent was removed to the hospital. Upon entering they discovered two keys on the living room [311]*311floor and a rifle in the sitting room. The keys fit the storm door and the kitchen door at the rear entrance to the apartment. The rifle held nine rounds of ammunition and when found it contained six unfired cartridges. Three spent bullet casings were recovered in the apartment. There was blood on the rifle and on the window through which Mrs. Liccione exited. The murder weapon was never found.

■Defendant was called at his job and he returned home to be met by Detectives Trotto, Gangemi and Perticone at the driveway to his apartment house. He was told then for the first time that his wife had been assaulted. When questioned, defendant stated that he owned a .22 calibre rifle which he normally kept in the garage with a box of shells but he stated that he had moved the rifle and shells to a camper parked in the driveway a few days earlier to keep them away from his children. Defendant stated that he had the only keys to the garage and camper and when asked how the children could gain access to the garage if he had the only key, he did not answer. The police asked defendant to see the rifle but defendant was unable to locate his key to the camper. Eventually the police discovered that the camper was unlocked. Defendant could not find the rifle or shells in the vehicle and when shown the rifle found in the apartment, he identified it as his and stated that he had no idea how it got from the camper to the house.

Defendant also identified the keys found in the living room as his. He stated that the keys were left on a window ledge outside the kitchen door in the shed between the storm door and the kitchen door so that his wife and children could use them to get into the house. When asked why he left the key to the storm door on a windowsill inside the shed and behind the storm door, defendant answered that he never locked the storm door. He further explained that the furniture was pushed against the front door of the apartment because he was painting the living room. Defendant was then asked to go to the Public Safety Building for further questioning and he agreed to do so. After he left, his children returned home and they were asked whether keys were ever left on the windowsill for them. They answered no. The police investigated the windowsill and testified that it appeared dusty and undisturbed as if nothing had been placed on it for a long time and that the sill was about five feet above the floor, too high for defendant’s six-year-old child to reach.

[312]*312The police found no evidence indicating that the purpose of the entry was theft. On the contrary, a woman’s purse was plainly visible in the dining room but undisturbed.

The jury also heard evidence of long-standing marital difficulties between defendant and his wife. Mrs. Liccione’s mother testified that defendant had threatened to kill her daughter earlier in June and another witness testified that after his wife’s death defendant told the mother "I made a mistake. I should have killed you first”. There was also evidence of the defendant’s activities at work the morning of the attack from which the jury was asked to infer that he had attempted to establish an alibi for the time of the killing. And, finally, there was evidence that the Black man seen running from the premises shortly after the assault had been seen in the neighborhood before the day of the assault and that he returned to the apartment about 10 days after it.

As a result of the killing, defendant and Fred A. Watson were indicted for murder, second degree. The defendant was tried separately and convicted as charged.

I

Initially, defendant challenges the sufficiency of the indictment. It charged that defendant and Fred A. Watson, in violation of sections 20.00 and 125.25 of the Penal Law, committed the crime of murder in the second degree in that "the defendants, on or about June 16, 1975 in the County of Monroe, State of New York with intent to cause the death of another person, to wit, Mary Luccione [sic] caused the death of such person by inflicting multiple stab wounds in and upon her body.” It is defendant’s contention that this indictment does not comply with CPL 200.50 (subd 7) requiring that the indictment assert facts supporting every element of the offense charged, i.e., it does not assert facts apprising the defendant that he was charged with accessorial conduct in soliciting, aiding or abetting Watson, the active wrongdoer, in committing the crime. The statute does not require such particularity, however, and that information may be obtained by way of bill of particulars, as it was in this case.

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Bluebook (online)
63 A.D.2d 305, 407 N.Y.S.2d 753, 1978 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 11346, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-liccione-nyappdiv-1978.