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THE DEFENDANT DROVE THE SHOOTER TO AND AWAY FROM THE MURDER SCENE; BUT THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE DEFENDANT SHARED THE SHOOTER’S INTENT TO KILL; DEFENDANT’S MURDER CONVICTION AS AN ACCOMPLICE WAS NOT SUPPORTED BY LEGALLY SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE AND WAS AGAINST THE WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing defendant’s murder conviction and dismissing the indictment, determined the evidence that defendant drove to shooter to various locations, including the scend of the murder, there was no evidence defendant shared the shooter’s intent. Therefore the evidence was legally insufficient and the conviction was against the weight of the evidence:

… [A] “… defendant’s presence at the scene of the crime, alone, is insufficient for a finding of criminal liability” … . Indeed, evidence that a defendant was at the crime scene and even assisted the perpetrator in removing evidence of that crime is insufficient to support a defendant’s conviction where the People fail to offer evidence from which the jury could rationally exclude the possibility that the defendant was without knowledge of the perpetrator’s intent … . … Here, we have no difficulty concluding, based on the video evidence showing defendant picking up the codefendant immediately after the shots were fired and speeding away from the scene, that there is a valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences by which the jury could have found that defendant intentionally aided the codefendant after the murder, but we cannot conclude that there is legally sufficient evidence to support the inference that defendant shared the codefendant’s intent to kill the victim … . … [T]here was no evidence at trial establishing that defendant and the codefendant had any conversations pertaining to the shooting of the victim; indeed, there is hardly any evidence establishing that defendant and the codefendant had much, if any interaction with each other before the day of the murder. Consequently, we conclude that the evidence was insufficient to establish that defendant was aware of, and shared, the codefendant’s intent to kill the victim … . People v Scott, 2025 NY Slip Op 07167, Fourth Dept 12-23-25

Practice Point: To be guilty of murder as an accomplice, there must be proof defendant shared the killer’s intent. Here there was proof the defendant drove the shooter to the murder scene and drove the shooter away from the murder scene. But there was no evidence defendant was aware of the shooter’s plan to kill, or even that the shooter was armed. Indictment dismissed.

 

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