People v. Lind

173 A.D.2d 179, 569 N.Y.S.2d 416, 1991 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5565
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedMay 7, 1991
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 173 A.D.2d 179 (People v. Lind) 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. Lind, 173 A.D.2d 179, 569 N.Y.S.2d 416, 1991 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5565 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1991).

Opinions

Judgments of the Supreme Court, New York County (Francis Pécora, J.), rendered January 16, 1984 and January 23, 1984, convicting defendants Cabassa and Lind, respectively, after trial by jury, of attempted murder in the first degree, three counts of attempted murder in the second degree and two counts of criminal use of a firearm in the first degree, and sentencing defendant Cabassa to three concurrent terms of 8V3 to 25 years for the attempted second degree murder counts and two concurrent terms of 5 to 10 years for the criminal use of a firearm counts and a consecutive term of 25 years to life for the attempted murder in the first degree count, all of the sentences to be consecutive to parole time defendant owed on a prior conviction, and sentencing defendant Lind as a persistent felony offender to three concurrent terms of 25 years to life for the attempted second degree murder convictions and two concurrent terms of 10 years to life on the criminal use of a firearm convictions and a consecutive term of 25 years to life on the attempted first degree murder conviction, are affirmed.

Plainclothes Officers Módica, De Vito and Cialone were [180]*180patrolling in Washington Heights in Manhattan in a taxicab when they observed a white Cadillac parked at 167th Street and Amsterdam Avenue with defendant Cabassa at the wheel, defendant Lind sitting in the front passenger seat and one Michael Acobes seated behind Lind. The Cadillac proceeded south on Amsterdam Avenue and the officers made a U-turn and followed it to 158th Street and Edward Morgan Place. Since the auto had inoperable tail lights and its trunk lid was bouncing up and down, the officers, after identifying themselves as police, "instructed the occupants of the car to pull over” but although the order was acknowledged, the Cadillac sped through the intersection and toward the southbound entrance of the Henry Hudson Parkway. As it got onto the parkway, it collided with another vehicle but continued south with the police in the taxi in pursuit. The Cadillac continued at speeds of 60 miles per hour, defendant Lind leaning out the window firing on two occasions at the pursuing police who returned the fire both times.

Police Officers Raymond Ruiz and Ronald Connelly, in uniform, had set up their patrol car as a roadblock near 125th Street. Connelly was in front and Ruiz in the rear of the car as the Cadillac approached and Lind opened fire on the waiting police officers. As the Cadillac swerved around the roadblock, an automatic weapon was thrown out from Lind’s window. After leaving the highway at high speed, the chase ended when the Cadillac went out of control and crashed into a parked auto. Hearing a gunshot at the moment of impact, Officers DeVito and Cialone each fired one shot into the Cadillac and defendants were apprehended. On the front floor of the Cadillac a loaded 9mm ammunition clip was removed and a 32 caliber automatic and a 9mm automatic were recovered near 125th Street on the West Side Highway. While the 32 caliber was completely operable, the 9mm automatic was test fired by the ballistic experts only by the use of a screwdriver depressing a mechanism.

Both defendants contend on appeal that the People failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they intended to kill any of the police. However, the conclusion reached by the jury that both men possessed the intent to kill the officers when Lind shot at them with Cabassa driving the car, was amply supported by the evidence and was, indeed, the only reasonable view of the People’s evidence. Lind repeatedly fired at the plainclothes officers with an automatic weapon. A bullet mark was left on the police taxi windshield as silent confirmatory evidence that he was aiming at the officers themselves and [181]*181shooting to kill. This intent was dramatically evinced when defendants approached the roadblock with the two waiting uniformed officers. Lind stretched all the way out of the window bracing his arm against the windshield and firing directly at the officers beginning fifteen yards away.

Although Cabassa did not himself fire any shots, the evidence that he shared in Lind’s intent to kill was compelling. After the Cadillac was first pulled over, Lind and Cabassa conversed for a few moments and then the car driven by Cabassa sped away. Cabassa continued to drive at "breakneck” speeds even after Lind first fired at the plainclothes officers, then engaged in automotive legerdemain in racing toward the manned roadblocks as Lind fired weaving through the small space left by the police car. Under these circumstances, the jury had ample basis for its rejection of defendant Cabassa’s testimony that no one in the Cadillac fired any shots at the police or even possessed a weapon, and finding that both defendants acted with the intent to kill the police officers.

Defendants also raise a subsidiary issue, i.e., Lind asserts that the trial court erred in not submitting attempted assault in the first degree as a lesser included offense of attempted murder and both defendants contend the jury should have been charged on attempted assault in the second degree as a lesser included offense. "To establish entitlement to a lesser included offense charge, the defendant must make two showings. First, it must be shown that the additional offense that he desires to have charged is a 'lesser included offense’, i.e., that it is an offense of lesser grade or degree and that in all circumstances, not only in those presented in the particular case, it is impossible to commit the greater crime without concomitantly, by the same conduct, committing the lesser offense. That established, the defendant must then show that there is a reasonable view of the evidence in the particular case that would support a finding that he committed the lesser offense but not the greater.” (People v Glover, 57 NY2d 61, 63.) Application of the first prong of this test validates the trial court’s refusal to charge attempted assault in the first degree as a lesser included offense. Such an offense is committed when a person, with intent to cause serious physical injury to another, attempts to cause such injury by means of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument (Penal Law §§ 110.00, 120.10 [1]). Attempted murder in the second degree, on the other hand, is committed when a person with the intent to cause the death of another, attempts to cause such death (Penal Law [182]*182§§ 110.00, 125.25). Thus, it is theoretically possible to commit attempted murder without, at the same time, committing attempted assault in the first degree, since attempted murder does not have a requirement that defendant use a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument in the attempt.

On the other hand, attempted assault in the second degree, i.e., attempting to cause serious physical injury to another with the intent of causing such serious physical injury, is a lesser included offense of attempted murder in the second degree. However, the trial court correctly also did not charge this lesser included offense since here the second prong of the test was not met, i.e., there was no "reasonable” view of the evidence in this particular case that would support a finding that either defendant committed the lesser offense but not the greater. While the dissent finds the trial court’s failure to submit the lesser charge is erroneous, its conclusion that "the jury could have reasonably concluded that if Lind intended to hit any of the officers at all, his objective was to injure, rather than kill them” is simply not borne out by the evidence which the jury had before it.

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Related

People v. Wilson
252 A.D.2d 241 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1998)
Taylor v. Mitchell
939 F. Supp. 249 (S.D. New York, 1996)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
173 A.D.2d 179, 569 N.Y.S.2d 416, 1991 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5565, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-lind-nyappdiv-1991.