People v. Maynard

40 A.D.2d 779, 337 N.Y.S.2d 644, 1972 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3443
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedNovember 9, 1972
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 40 A.D.2d 779 (People v. Maynard) 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. Maynard, 40 A.D.2d 779, 337 N.Y.S.2d 644, 1972 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3443 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

Judgment of the Supreme Court, New York County, rendered February 4, 1971, convicting defendant, after trial before Davidson, J. and a jury, of manslaughter in the first degree [former Penal Law, § 1Ó50] and sentencing him to imprisonment of not less than 10 nor more than 20 years, affirmed. This is the third trial of this case, the first two having ended respectively in a disagreement and a mistrial. Two eyewitnesses saw the defendant shoot and kill Marine Sergeant Kroll and a third eyewitness, who had been watching Maynard during an earlier confrontation, saw Maynard in immediate flight from the scene of the shooting. The record shows that Maynard’s guilt was established beyond a reasonable doubt. It was not error to reject the testimony of one Levy with reference to street lights, The People’s witness Weinstein, Deputy Director in charge of the Engineering Division of the New York City Bureau of Gas and Electricity, had been called as a witness by the People to establish the existence of light fixtures. He was not called as an expert to give opinions on lighting effects. The so-called expert testimony that he gave was testimony elicited for the first time during defendant’s cross-examination of Weinstein. Counsel by its cross-examination had made Weinstein his own witness on these subjects, and the trial court’s ruling that defendant may not call Levy as an expert witness to contradict expert testimony elicited by him was within the bounds of its discretion, As is said in Bender’s New York Evidence, (vol. 1, § 27.03): “Normally, strict order of proof requires that when a party desires to examine an adversary’s witness on matters outside the scope of cross-examination, he must call that witness as his own for direct examination. In actual practice, this rule is usually relaxed when a cross-examiner brings up new matter. However, when that occurs, the witness then becomes the witness of the adverse party who is bound by the answers. Such witness, when questioned on new matter, may not be contradicted by other evidence.” We have examined the other assignments of error- and found them to be without merit. Concur — Kupferman, McNally and Tilzer, JJ.; Stevens, P. J., and Murphy, J., dissent in the following memorandum by Murphy, J.: We cannot vote to affirm this conviction because of the numerous errors committed at the trial; some Of which are discussed below. The defendant was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree and sentenced to imprison[780]*780ment for an indeterminate term of not less than 10 nor more than 20 years. A sailor, Robert Crist, testified he was accosted hy James Earnhardt in Greenwich Village and that he thereafter chased and struck him. A police officer separated these two antagonists and walked the purported homosexual away from the altercation. Defendant Maynard, together with a male companion, then berated Crist for striking the older and smaller man. An argument developed among these three persons which lasted from two to five minutes and terminated when Sgt. Kroll arrived on the scene; and Maynard and his male companion departed. Kroll and Crist decided to continue the argument and drove, in Kroll's car, after Maynard and his companion, catching up with them on West 4th Street between Sixth. Avenue and McDougal Street. Two witnesses, Crist and Dennis Morris, testified they saw defendant shoot the decedent Kroll in the face with a sawed-off shotgun. Michael Febles also identified the defendant as the person he saw arguing with Crist and, although he did not see the actual shooting, he testified that he heard the shotgun blast, saw Maynard and his accomplice run away and observed the accomplice throw an object to the ground. Howard Fox, a cab driver, testified that at 1:10 in the afternoon of the day before the shooting, he drove Maynard and another person to Greenwich Village and that Maynard’s companion had a camera hag over his shoulder. Defendant Maynard claimed he was not in Greenwich Village, but at his wife’s family’s home in Queens; and that although he was separated from his wife he was still friendly with her brother, Michael Quinn. At the first trial the Quinn family testified they did not know defendant’s whereabouts on April 2-3, 1967, although they had previously executed affidavits averring that ho was in the Quinn household during that critical evening. However, at this trial they supported Maynard’s alibi and claimed they were coerced into giving false' statements at the first trial by Assistant District Attorney Gallina. The prosecution’s case relied principally on the identification testimony of Robert Crist, Dennis Morris and Michael Febles. The street lighting, the opportunity of the witnesses to observe the killer, the police identification procedures, and whether the alibi witnesses were telling the truth at the first trial or at this trial were among the contested issues at the trial. The prosecution called, as its second witness, Irving Weinstein, an expert in street lighting. His testimony dealt with the lighting conditions on the streets where the crime was committed, as well as the area where the identification witnesses had seen the defendant. Weinstein testified to the kind of lighting as well as its amount. From tests he took in May of 1969, he concluded that the average light in the area was 1.5 foot-candle and that this meant that one with 20-20 vision could read small print of a newspaper, albeit with difficulty. He conceded that the needle of a light meter barely moved and that his conclusions were arrived at mathematically. He testified that he had a reasonable degree of professional certainty that the mathematical formula he used to calculate the amount of foot-candles was reliable, and that the lighting in this area was twice the standard set as the proper standard for the City of Few York. He also gave his opinion that if the windows in the bank on the southeast corner of West Fourth Street and Sixth Avenue were lit, visual observation would be aided because objects would be seen against the illuminated background, and that “silhouette lighting” made it easier to see faces and features. On its case, the defense attempted to call Charles Levy, a lighting consultant, to give expert testimony on the same subject matter as that testified to by Weinstein. The court sustained the prosecutor’s objection to this witness. We believe this was error of such a nature as to deprive defendant of a fair trial and, alone, mandates a reversal. The issue of the lighting is an [781]*781integral part of the identification evidence on the night of the crime. The People, in an effort to make the identifications more believable to the jury, paint a picture of streets lit twice the standard for New York City. It defies reason to deny the defense the right to meet this issue, especially since the offer of proof makes clear that Levy would have rebutted Weinstein’s principal points as well as the lay witnesses who were permitted to give opinions on lighting. (Cf. People v. Dewey, 23 A D 2d 960; People v. Jackson, 10 N Y 2d 510.) The District Attorney’s summation refers to Weinstein’s testimony to establish that the identifications were made on a “ well-lighted street ”; and the court’s charge that in determining the accuracy of the identifications the jury should consider the lighting conditions ”, merely magnify the gravity of the preclusion. It was also error to receive in evidence, as the court stated, “as an admission by conduct” the testimony of Howard Fox that when he, Fox, came into the room where defendant was being held in police custody, the defendant looked at Fox, Fox looked at the defendant, and the defendant then turned his head to the left.

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Related

People v. Cruz
129 A.D.3d 119 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 2015)
People v. Maynard
80 Misc. 2d 279 (New York Supreme Court, 1974)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
40 A.D.2d 779, 337 N.Y.S.2d 644, 1972 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3443, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-maynard-nyappdiv-1972.