People v. Townsend

111 A.D.2d 636, 490 N.Y.S.2d 201, 1985 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 49908
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedJune 13, 1985
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 111 A.D.2d 636 (People v. Townsend) 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. Townsend, 111 A.D.2d 636, 490 N.Y.S.2d 201, 1985 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 49908 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinion

Judgment of the Supreme Court, Bronx County (D. Levy, J.), rendered February 18,1983, [637]*637convicting defendant, after trial by jury, of murder in the second degree, and sentencing him to a term of imprisonment of 20 years to life, is reversed, on the law and facts, and the matter remanded for a new trial.

Judicial innovation in the interests of simplifying the task of the jury and helping it in its deliberations is to be applauded. In this case, however, the trial court’s premature and unbalanced written charge on the law, in the preliminary instructions, covering both substantive law as well as procedures, denied defendant due process.

There is no need to recapitulate the testimony and evidence presented at the trial. The critical issues for the jury’s determination were the credibility of witnesses and the voluntariness of statements allegedly made by defendant and his codefendant, Bernard Graves.

Over the objection of both attorneys for the defense, as well as the prosecutor, the trial court provided each juror with a written copy of its preliminary charge on the elements of intentional murder, felony murder and first degree robbery, and the non-shooter affirmative defense to felony murder, to refer to during trial.

As noted, this case turned on the credibility of witnesses and the voluntariness of statements. Yet, in its preliminary charge the court neglected to include instructions on the presumption of innocence, reasonable doubt, voluntariness of statements and the manner in which to assess credibility. Thus, the jurors may have been encouraged to begin deliberations before the completion of the trial and to evaluate the evidence solely on the basis of the written outline given them, in spite of the complete absence of those instructions critical to a fair verdict.

Pursuant to CPL 260.30, which sets forth the order in which a jury trial proceeds, subdivision (2) reads: “The court must deliver preliminary instructions to the jury” (emphasis added). After the evidence and summations, “10. The court must then deliver a charge to the jury.” The charge is followed only by the jury deliberations and “if possible * * * a verdict.” (CPL 260.30 [11].) The dissent finds it a “relatively safe proposition” and “appropriate” for the court to instruct the jurors with regard to the elements of the crimes charged at the beginning of the trial. However, CPL 270.40, which deals with preliminary instructions, mandates that the trial court “instruct the jury generally concerning its basic functions, duties and conduct” (emphasis added). Chief Administrative Judge Bellacosa, in his commentary on this section, notes that “the kind and depth of instructions which must be given [are] quite general and preliminary” [638]*638(Bellacosa, Practice Commentary, McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 11 A, CPL 270.40, p 502; see also, People v Newman, 46 NY2d 126, 129-131). The dissent further notes that “accurate instructions as to the elements of the charged crimes are wholly neutral and have no * * * built-in prosecutorial bias.” However, even the prosecutor objected to the court’s submission, noting: “You see I’m just afraid, Judge, that by giving this to the jury even though Your Honor will no doubt in my mind charge it in every — in every facet of the law, by giving these written instructions to them they may — they may feel that the Court is emphasizing something” (emphasis added).

The in-depth, yet incomplete, written charge furnished to the jury before the presentation of evidence encouraged premature deliberations. The duty of the jury not to consider the case before it is submitted “is an important one. It appears to derive not only from the statutory admonition, the salutary purposes of which are obvious, but also may, perhaps, be rooted in defendant’s right under our State Constitution to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12 persons, all of whose deliberations are to be carried on as one body of 12. (See People v Ryan, 19 NY2d 100, 104-105.) Moreover, when that duty is breached before defendant’s summation, as may have occurred here, the possibility exists that some or all of the jurors will have formed conclusions about the case without their having been exposed to defendant’s summation, ‘a basic element of the adversary fact-finding process in a criminal trial.’ (Herring v New York, 422 US 853, 858.)” (People v Gordon, 77 AD2d 662, 664.)

The dissent states that the finding that the incomplete written instructions furnished the jury violated defendant’s right to a fair trial is not “clearly explained.” Simply and clearly put, the trial court’s innovation of providing the jurors during the preliminary instructions with a written outline of the elements of three of the crimes for which defendant and the codefendant were indicted, and the elements of a possible affirmative defense, invited the jurors to deliberate as the evidence unfolded rather than at its conclusion. This written charge was rendered even more prejudicial since neither it nor the oral preliminary instructions contained any of the instructions beneficial to the defendants, and of paramount importance in reaching a fair verdict, such as presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt. The written instructions given to the jury included the phrase “the People must prove beyond a reasonable doubt” a number of times but it was used solely in conjunction with the elements of the various crimes charged. Without a definition, the use of the phrase in such a context is little more than a meaningless [639]*639incantation. Thus, the jury was encouraged to make a preliminary decision that an element of a crime was satisfied without the countervailing instruction that any decision should be subjected to the proper constitutional standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Indeed, in its final charge, the court instructed the jury to acquit if it did not find any of the statements of a defendant to be voluntary and truthful since it “determined that the remaining evidence is insufficient as a matter of law to establish the guilt of that defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.” This clearly demonstrates the prejudice to defendant as a result of the preliminary instruction for the jury to evaluate the evidence in the context of the elements of the charged crimes without equally prominent instructions on the voluntariness of statements and the credibility of witnesses.

Finally, before the testimony began, the court already had charged the jury on the elements of intentional murder, felony murder, first degree robbery and the affirmative defense to felony murder. However, after the evidence was in, it submitted only the felony murder count, nor did it submit the affirmative defense. As a consequence, it might well have conveyed the message, although unintentionally, that defendant had no viable defense, and that of the three crimes submitted to them, felony murder was the one of which defendant was guilty.

The dissent notes that “it is an invariable part of the jury selection process that the trial court instructs the jury as to the fundamental principles governing such trials”. The record, of course, is silent as to how often, or if at all, the jury was informed during voir dire that defendant was presumed innocent and of his other rights. Even assuming, as does the dissent, that defense counsel did so repetitively, the fact remains that the voir dire is not

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People v. Townsend
112 A.D.2d 69 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1985)

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Bluebook (online)
111 A.D.2d 636, 490 N.Y.S.2d 201, 1985 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 49908, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-townsend-nyappdiv-1985.