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ALTHOUGH THE ASSAULT JURY INSTRUCTION DID NOT TRACK THE INDICTMENT, THE PEOPLE DID NOT OBJECT TO IT AND THE APPELLATE COURT MUST ASSESS THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE ACCORDING TO THE INSTRUCTION; ASSESSED IN THE LIGHT OF THE JURY INSTRUCTION, THE ASSAULT COUNTS WERE NOT SUPPORTED BY LEGALLY SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE; THE CRIMINAL USE OF A FIREARM JURY INSTRUCTION DID NOT TRACK THE INDICTMENT, VIOLATING DEFENDANT’S RIGHT TO BE TRIED ONLY ON THE CRIMES CHARGED (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, over a dissent, reversed the assault convictions, while affirming the murder conviction. The codefendant, intending to kill the decedent, also shot the two assault victims. Defendant was charged with murder and assault as an accomplice. Although the indictment charged assault under a transferred intent theory, the jury was instructed to find the defendant guilty of assault only if he intended injure the assault victims. Because, on appeal, the sufficiency of the evidence must be measured by the what the jury was instructed to consider, and because there was no evidence the defendant intended to injure the assault victims (as opposed to the decedent), the assault convictions were not supported by legally sufficient evidence. Although the defendant did not preserve the error by objecting to another inaccurate jury instruction which did not track the indictment, the criminal use of a firearm count was also dismissed because defendant’s right to the tried only on the crimes charged was violated:

“The doctrine of transferred intent’ serves to ensure that a person will be prosecuted for the crime he or she intended to commit even when, because of bad aim or some other lucky mistake,’ the intended target was not the actual victim” … . Although that theory may be applied to assault charges … , County Court’s jury instruction in this case mandated that the jury could convict defendant of the counts of assault in the first degree only if they found that he acted “with the intent to cause serious physical injury to” each assault victim, rather than instructing the jury that they could convict defendant of those crimes if they concluded that he intended to cause such injury to the deceased victim but the codefendant actually caused injury to the assault victims. The prosecution did not object to that charge, and it is well settled that, when reviewing a “jury’s guilty verdict, our review is limited to whether there was legally sufficient evidence . . . based on the court’s charge as given without exception” … . Inasmuch as there is insufficient evidence that defendant knew that either of the assault victims was present or that he intended any harm to either of them … , we conclude that the evidence is not legally sufficient with respect to the assault counts as charged to the jury. * * *

Although the court’s jury instructions did not specify assault in the first degree as the underlying crime for the criminal use of a firearm in the first degree count, and defendant did not object to the court’s instructions and thus did not preserve this issue for our review, we conclude that “preservation is not required” … , inasmuch as “defendant has a fundamental and nonwaivable right to be tried only on the crimes charged” in the indictment … . Therefore, based on the indictment, defendant could only be convicted of that charge if he committed assault in the first degree … . Thus, we conclude that, because “the conviction[s] of assault in the first degree cannot stand, the conviction of criminal use of a firearm in the first degree, which requires commission of [the] class B violent felony offense[ of assault in the first degree] while possessing a deadly weapon, also cannot stand” … . People v Spencer, 2020 NY Slip Op 01823, Fourth Dept 3-13-20

 

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