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)