A woman and her partner went into a boutique where they obtained a talked with the owner. While the woman went through the process of trying on several dresses that none of which were purchased, the woman’s partner asked directions going to the bathroom which was located to the rear of the store and which he carefully surveyed for the purpose of accomplishing the upcoming burglary. Three days later at about 2:15 a.m., the woman together with her partner pulled into the rear alleyway behind the boutique and stopped the car with the car trunk facing the rear bathroom window. On the evening before, the man which was the woman’s partner had purchased an ankle holster for a gun he owned. Consequently, while the woman acted as a lookout, the man entered the boutique by the bathroom window and he then brought numerous articles of women’s clothing, including 240 ladies’ blouses, 16 pantsuits and 16 ladies’ coats, into the bathroom and gave these articles to woman through the bathroom window. The woman then placed the articles in the trunk of the car. At that moment, an officer accompanied by another officer, who was on routine patrol duty saw the car in the alley and spotted the open bathroom window to the boutique. The officer’s promptly called for assistance. The officer’s also saw the woman hiding behind the car. The questioning by the officers took from one to three minutes and was limited to inquiry of what she was doing, however no arrest was then made.
A New York Criminal Lawyer said apparently, an officer who had just arrived because of the radio call went to the street to cover the front of the store. Simultaneously, the man broke out the front of the store. The officer, who had not drawn his gun, attempted to stop the man but at that point the man attempted to escape the scene and later shot the officer. The officer then died from the wound inflicted by the man.
The woman now contends that there should be a reversal in the conviction that the court made a mistake in refusing to charge the jury as requested by the woman. An NY Criminal Lawyer said the court stated that they found no error or deficiency in the court’s main charge or its refusal to adopt the specific requests to charge. The woman willingly and voluntarily involved herself, and indeed fully participated in a burglary and by doing that she necessarily accepted all the consequences of the felony murder committed either during the course of the burglary or during the man’s immediate flight from the burglary. Based on records, it cannot be reasonably argued that the officer’s momentary intervention as the man was exiting the boutique and fleeing from the burglary, terminated either the burglary or the man’s immediate flight there from. In previous cases, a unanimous court upheld the felony murder conviction upon facts significantly similar and really identical with the woman’s case.
An examination to the first request made by the woman made no mention whatsoever of felony murder liability in the event that the killing took place during immediate flight and if implied in the terms requested by the woman, it would have been an erroneous charge. The said request spoke only to an instruction that the jury were required to acquit if they found the burglary alone had terminated at the moment of the killing.
Based on records, both at common law and by statute in the state, a felonious homicide is considered murder by operation of the legal fiction of transferred intent, and the homicide is characterized as having been committed with malice prepense. The majority has not addressed the other assigned errors and all of which are without any merit.
Consequently, the court found that the woman’s conviction of the felony murder of the police officer should be upheld and the order of the appellate division should be affirmed.
There are people who face financial difficulty in life and those problems trigger them to do something unlawful. In their aspiration to have money for their needs they don’t consider the consequences doing illegal actions. If you’ve been troubled because of a crime you committed, whether it was a theft, sex crimes or drug charge, ask help from the Nassau County Criminal Lawyers. If you happen to be a crime victim, the Nassau County Arrest Attorneys at Stephen Bilkis & Associates are always ready to give you competent legal advice.