THE PEOPLE FOCUSED THEIR PROOF ON THE SEXUAL MOTIVATION FOR THE BURGLARY; ALTHOUGH BURGLARY SECOND IS A LESSER INCLUDED OFFENSE OF BURGLARY SECOND AS A SEXUALLY MOTIVATED OFFENSE, THE JURY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CHARGED ON THE LESSER OFFENSE BECAUSE THE DEFENDANT HAD NO PRIOR NOTICE OF THAT POSSIBILITY (FIRST DEPT).
The First Department, dismissing the burglary second count, determined the People’s request to instruct the jury on burglary second as a lesser included offense of burglary second as a sexually motivated offense should not have been granted. Although burglary second is a lesser included offense of burglary second as a sexually motivated offense, the People’s case focused only on the sexual motivation. Defendant therefore did not have notice the jury would consider burglary second:
… [T]he court improperly charged the lesser-included offense because the People, through the way they presented their case, deprived defendant of notice of the possibility that the jury would be asked to consider a lesser-included. In People v Barnes (50 NY2d 375 [1980]), the Court of Appeals observed that, where the People in a burglary case limit to a particular crime the act that the defendant intended to commit while unlawfully in a building, “the court is obliged to hold the prosecution to this narrower theory alone” … . * * *
In opposing defendant’s pretrial motion to sever certain charges in the indictment from the others, the People focused exclusively on defendant’s sexual harassment of the complainant, and on his grabbing the arm and pulling the shirt of another woman he encountered in the dorm. In making an application for the admission of certain Molineux evidence, the prosecutor focused only on the theory that defendant entered the dorm to satisfy his own sexual urges. And, in his opening statement, the prosecutor stated that defendant “knowingly and unlawfully entered the private area of a dorm to do exactly what he had been doing minutes prior — to grab, to grope and to harass the young women who lived there.” Further, the prosecutor downplayed the behavior defendant displayed towards some men he saw in the lobby of the dorm, stating that “the evidence will show that he was substantially motivated by his desire to abuse women when he passed that turnstile and unlawfully entered the private area of the dorm.” People v Seignious, 2022 NY Slip Op 00948, First Dept 2-10-22