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Insufficient Evidence of Depraved Indifference Assault and Assault on a Police Officer

The Second Department determined there was insufficient evidence to support defendant’s convictions for depraved indifference assault and assault on a police officer.  The facts did not demonstrate defendant acted with depraved indifference, nor was the injured police officer engaged in a “lawful duty” when he stopped defendant’s car in the absence of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity:

Under these facts, where the defendant was attempting to get away from the officers’ unlawful questioning, where the injuries were caused not by the direct crash, but when the police car pivoted after being hit, and where it all happened in an instant, “the evidence did not establish the degree of depravity and indifference to human life required for depraved indifference [assault]” ….  * * *

A person commits the crime of assault on a police officer when, “with intent to prevent a . . . police officer . . . from performing a lawful duty, he [or she] causes serious physical injury to” the officer (Penal Law § 120.08). “To sustain a conviction of assault in the second [or first] degree under Penal Law § 120.05(3), the People must establish that the injured police officer was engaged in a lawful duty at the time of the assault by the defendant” … .Here, the police conduct in pulling in front of the defendant’s parked vehicle so as to block his ability to pull out of the parking space “constituted a stop, which required reasonable suspicion that the defendant [was] either involved in criminal activity or posed some danger to the police”…. However, Sergeant Pagnotta’s testimony was clear that, at no time prior to the positioning of the police car so as to block the defendant’s vehicle, nor during the ensuing encounter after Sergeant Pagnotta got out of the police car and approached the window of the defendant’s vehicle, was the defendant observed to be engaged in any criminal activity, or in any activity that would have aroused reasonable suspicion.  People v Hurdle, 2013 NY Slip Op 03849, 2nd Dept, 5-29-13

 

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