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ALTHOUGH THE TRIAL COURT ABUSED ITS DISCRETION BY ALLOWING A VIOLENT COURTROOM SCENE IN A MOVIE TO BE PLAYED FOR THE JURY BECAUSE THE DEFENDANT HAD QUOTED DIALOGUE FROM IT, THE ERROR WAS HARMLESS; THE DISSENT ARGUED IT WAS NOT HARMLESS ERROR (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department determined it was harmless error to allow the prosecutor in this murder case to show part of a movie from which the defendant had posted dialogue. The dissent argued the error was not harmless:

… [T]he court abused its discretion when it permitted the prosecutor to play for the jury a scene from the film, The Boondock Saints. The scene takes place inside a courtroom, where the protagonists threaten everyone with pistols. Some people in the scene, presumably those playing the jurors, watch in astonishment while ducking for cover. The protagonists make loud, self-aggrandizing statements, declaring themselves vigilantes tasked by God with bringing justice to the world (e.g. “Each day we will spill their blood till it rains down from the sky!”). For those who do not behave morally, the protagonists offer a message: “One day you will look behind you and you will see we three . . . and we will send you to whichever God you wish.” The protagonists put their guns to the back of the defendant’s head while he is knelt on the floor in an execution-style pose. Gunfire erupts, and everyone runs out of the courthouse screaming.

The prosecutor’s ostensible reason for playing that particular scene was to rebut defendant’s testimony that he was coerced by his accomplice into participating in the murder and subsequently lying to the police. The relevance of that scene is that defendant posted quotations from it on social media two days after the victim’s murder and one day before he gave the allegedly coerced statement to the police. …

Because the probative value of the scene from The Boondock Saints video was substantially outweighed by the danger that its admission would prejudice defendant or mislead the jury, the court abused its discretion in admitting it … . People v Horn, 2020 NY Slip Op 04712, Fourth Dept 8-20-20

 

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