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PEOPLE’S FAILURE TO OBJECT TO JURY INSTRUCTION WHICH (UNNECESSARILY) INCREASED THEIR BURDEN OF PROOF REQUIRED THE PEOPLE TO MEET THAT BURDEN.

The Second Department determined that People’s failure to object to the judge’s instruction to the jury, which increased the People’s burden of proof, required that the People meet that burden (which the People failed to do). The defendant was charged with first degree robbery. Two victims, Brandt and Bishop, were ordered to lie on the ground at gunpoint. Brandt was shot when he didn’t lie down and later died. Property was taken from Bishop, but not from Brandt. In the charge to the jury, the judge stated that, in order to convict the defendant of first degree robbery, the jury must find property was forcibly taken from Brandt. The People did not object:

As the People correctly concede, the evidence was legally insufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt of robbery in the first degree under Penal Law § 160.15(1), as that crime was charged to the jury. As relevant here, “[a] person is guilty of robbery in the first degree when he forcibly steals property and when, in the course of the commission of the crime or of immediate flight therefrom, he or another participant in the crime . . . [c]auses serious physical injury to any person who is not a participant in the crime” (Penal Law § 160.15[1]). In this case, the Supreme Court instructed the jurors, without objection, that to find the defendant guilty of robbery in the first degree, they had to find, inter alia, that the defendant, acting in concert with at least one other individual, forcibly stole property from Brandt. Where, as here, “the trial court’s instructions to the jury increase the People’s burden, and the People fail to object, they must satisfy the heavier burden” … . Inasmuch as the evidence demonstrated that property was only taken from Bishop, the People failed to satisfy their burden as to the count of robbery in the first degree. Although the defendant’s legal sufficiency claim as to this count is unpreserved for appellate review, we reach it in the exercise of our interest of justice jurisdiction … . People v Rose, 2015 NY Slip Op 09702, 2nd Dept 12-30-15

CRIMINAL LAW (PEOPLE’S FAILURE TO OBJECT TO JURY CHARGE WHICH INCREASED THEIR BURDEN OF PROOF REQUIRED THEM TO MEET THAT BURDEN)/JURY INSTRUCTION (PEOPLE’S FAILURE TO OBJECT TO JURY CHARGE WHICH INCREASED THEIR BURDEN OF PROOF REQUIRED THEM TO MEET THAT BURDEN)/BURDEN OF PROOF, CRIMINAL (PEOPLE’S FAILURE TO OBJECT TO JURY CHARGE WHICH INCREASED THEIR BURDEN OF PROOF REQUIRED THEM TO MEET THAT BURDEN)

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