EVIDENCE SUPPORTED THE FIRST DEGREE MURDER CONVICTION BASED UPON DEFENDANT’S HIRING THE KILLER (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, over a two-justice dissent, determined the evidence supported the first degree murder charge, based upon defendant’s hiring the killer. The dissent argued the proof of the contract-killing was insufficient. The second degree murder count should have been dismissed:

We and our dissenting colleagues agree on many points. All of us agree that there was sufficient evidence that defendant was complicit in his wife’s murder. Further, all of us agree that there is evidence that the principal requested a payment of money from defendant only five days before the murder. Nevertheless, our dissenting colleagues characterize that request as “part of a string of otherwise innocent interactions” between defendant and the principal in the days leading up to the murder. The dissent even offers the possibility that the principal was “seeking a reward” from defendant—not for agreeing to murder defendant’s wife, but for unrelated virtuous conduct. We cannot agree. In our view, the jury could rationally have concluded that the principal’s request for a payment of money five days before the murder was not “innocent” at all, but in fact was part and parcel of the murder plot. People v Clayton, 2019 NY Slip Op 06284, Fourth Dept 8-22-19