DEFENDANT WAS ENTITLED TO SEVERANCE FROM THE CODEFENDANTS, CODEFENDANTS TOOK AN AGGRESSIVE ADVERSERIAL STANCE AGAINST DEFENDANT AT TRIAL, NEW TRIAL ORDERED.

The Fourth Department determined defendant’s trial for criminal possession of a weapon should have been severed from the trial of his codefendants for the same offense. At trial the codefendants alleged it was defendant who possessed the weapon:

We conclude that the codefendants’ respective attorneys “took an aggressive adversarial stance against [defendant at trial], in effect becoming a second [and a third] prosecutor” … . We further conclude that the ” essence or core of the defenses [were] in conflict, such that the jury, in order to believe the core of one defense, . . . necessarily [had to] disbelieve the core of the other’ ” … . Thus, in retrospect … , there was “a significant danger . . . that the conflict alone would lead the jury to infer defendant’s guilt,” and therefore severance was required … . People v Mcguire, 2017 NY Slip Op 02206, 4th Dept 3-24-17

CRIMINAL LAW (DEFENDANT WAS ENTITLED TO SEVERANCE FROM THE CODEFENDANTS, CODEFENDANTS TOOK AN AGGRESSIVE ADVERSERIAL STANCE AGAINST DEFENDANT AT TRIAL, NEW TRIAL ORDERED)/SEVERANCE (CRIMINAL LAW, DEFENDANT WAS ENTITLED TO SEVERANCE FROM THE CODEFENDANTS, CODEFENDANTS TOOK AN AGGRESSIVE ADVERSERIAL STANCE AGAINST DEFENDANT AT TRIAL, NEW TRIAL ORDERED)