People v. Woodfin
This text of People v. Woodfin (People v. Woodfin) 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.
Opinion
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Bureau Thomas J.K. Smith, State Reporter
People v Woodfin
2026 NY Slip Op 04156
June 30, 2026
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
This decision is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.
The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Unique Woodfin, Appellant.
Decided and Entered: June 30, 2026
Ind. No. 1239/16|Appeal No. 7005|Case No. 2022-02027|
Before: Scarpulla, J.P., González, Rodriguez, Higgitt, Hagler, JJ.
Jenay Nurse Guilford, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Molly Booth of counsel), for appellant.
Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (Lindsey Richards of counsel), for respondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Ralph A. Fabrizio, J.), rendered April 11, 2022, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a persistent violent felony offender, to an aggregate term of 40 years to life, unanimously affirmed.
Defendant failed to preserve his claim that the trial court improperly revisited its determination that counsel had made a prima facie Batson claim, as he did not raise that argument before the trial court (see People v Rodriguez, 93 AD3d 595, 595 [1st Dept 2012], lv denied 19 NY3d 966 [2012]). For the same reason, he failed to preserve his contention that the court was required based on its previous Batson ruling to find that he met his prima facie burden (id.). We decline to reach defendant's claims in the interest of justice.
In the alternative, we reject defendant's arguments on the merits. The court properly revisited and reversed its finding that defendant had made a prima facie case that the People's challenge to a Black venireperson was discriminatory after realizing that it mistakenly concluded the People, having already had a Batson challenge against them sustained, peremptorily challenged the very next Black venireperson. In fact, the People had argued in the interim for impaneling another Black venireperson on the same panel (see People v Godbold, 117 AD3d 565, 565-566 [1st Dept 2014], lv denied 27 NY3d 997 [2016]). Once the court found defendant had not met his prima facie burden, the People were "not required to explain" their peremptory challenge (People v Alomar, 245 AD2d 219, 220 [1st Dept 1997], affd 93 NY2d 239 [1999]).
[*2]The jury's verdict comported with the weight of the evidence (see People v Danielson, 9 NY3d 342, 348 [2007]; see also People v Baque, 43 NY3d 26 [2024]). Initially, we perceive no basis to disturb the jury's credibility determinations. Defendant's "intent to cause death was readily infer[a]ble from his actions" (People v Valverde, 205 AD2d 444, 444 [1st Dept 1994], lv denied 84 NY2d 940 [1994]). Here, defendant was captured on video shooting the victim twice in the head, at close range. The evidence also amply supported the jury's determinations as to identity. The man depicted in the high quality video closely resembled defendant and wore what appeared to be the same t-shirt depicted in defendant's parole photograph taken two weeks before the shooting. Cell phone and cell site records placed defendant and his now-deceased co-defendant by the scene of the murder, and they quickly moved away afterwards. Witness testimony established co-defendant Pinos's motive for killing the victim; that Pinos sent a van to the salvage yard that resembled the vehicle used to flee the scene shortly after the shooting; and that defendant and Pinos were in frequent contact leading up to the murder. Phone calls with a jailed friend who was arrested while driving a car registered to defendant established that defendant was worried that the recovery of .38 caliber cartridges from the car's trunk could put him in jail for the rest of his life. The cartridges matched the type of bullets used to shoot the victim.
Defendant was not entitled to preclusion or an adverse inference based on the destruction by the police of the .38 caliber cartridges, which were recovered months after the murder (see People v Jenkins, 98 NY2d 280, 284 [2002]). Defendant never requested their preservation. Moreover, the destruction of the cartridges was "nonwillful," and defendant did not establish that he was prejudiced by their destruction or that the People destroyed the cartridges in bad faith (People v Martinez, 22 NY3d 551, 567 [2014]). Thus, neither a sanction by the trial court (id.) nor a dismissal of the indictment were warranted (cf. People v Holmes, 166 AD3d 559, 560 [1st Dept 2018]).
The court appropriately sentenced defendant to consecutive terms of 22 years to life on the murder charge and 18 years to life on the weapon possession charge under Penal Law § 265.03(3) (see Penal Law § 70.25[2]; People v Brown, 21 NY3d 739, 752 [2013]). The evidence showed that defendant possessed the gun before shooting Garcia. Defendant's crime justifies the aggregate sentence of 40 years to life. There is no basis to reduce the sentence (see People v Mason, 213 AD3d 531, 534 [1st Dept 2023], lv denied 39 NY3d 1156 [2023]). THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER
OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.
ENTERED: June 30, 2026
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