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DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO SEVER THE TWO OFFENSES, WHICH OCCURRED ON DIFFERENT DATES AND WERE UNRELATED, SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, reversing defendant’s convictions, determined the two separate crimes which occurred on different dates should not have been joined for a single trial. Defendant was charged with leaving the scene of an accident on September 4, 2011, and DWI on January 15, 2012. The officer who arrested defendant in January 2012 for DWI testified he recognized the vehicle and driver from the video and stills taken during the September 2011 incident:

Offenses are joinable even though they are based on different criminal transactions if proof of one offense would be material and admissible as evidence in chief upon a trial of the other offense or the offenses are defined by the same or similar statutory provisions … . Severance of counts contained in a single indictment should be granted when a defendant shows that the counts were not joinable under the statutory criteria … .

… [N]one of the proof necessary for each offense was material to the other. The facts underlying defendant’s conviction for leaving the scene of an accident stemmed from a September 4, 2011 incident. The victim was lying on the road of the Henry Hudson Parkway. After other drivers stopped to try and pull the victim out of the road, a dark Acura ran him over and continued driving without stopping. … There was video footage and still pictures from the toll plaza that showed the cars of the drivers who stopped to help, followed immediately by the dark Acura. … Defendant was the registered owner of the dark Acura.

The DWI conviction was based on an incident that occurred four months later, on January 15, 2012. At that time, defendant was observed by police officers weaving in and out of his lane and driving 85 mph in a 50-mph zone. The officer who arrested defendant for the DWI was permitted to testify relative to the charge of leaving the scene that he recognized the vehicle and driver in the video and stills taken on September 4, 2011 as the same vehicle and person he stopped on January 15, 2012. People v Santiago, 2021 NY Slip Op 00130, First Dept 1-12-21

 

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