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‘Voluntary Possession’ and Erroneous Jury Instructions
People v J.L.
NY Slip Op 07663 [36 NY3d 112]
Court of Appeals
Decided on December 17, 2020
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Issue:
Whether Trial Court’s Jury Instructions on Possession Were Incorrect
Whether the trial court erred in failing to provide jury instructions on voluntary possession in connection with defendant J.L.’s third-degree criminal possession of a weapon count because the court believed the instructions would be “more confusing than helpful,” even though the evidence supported the jury charge.
Holding:
Trial Court Erred in Omitting Instructions
The Court held that the trial court erred in failing to provide jury instructions on voluntary possession, and that error warrants a new trial for the defendant’s third-degree criminal possession of a weapon count.
Facts:
Police responded to an emergency call where they found defendant J.L. outside of a residential building, bleeding from the back of the neck. Defendant told the officers that he had been shot while he was in the kitchen of the building’s basement apartment. During the search of the apartment, officers found a trail of blood into a back bedroom, where they saw pools of blood on the floor, a Military Armament Corporation Model 11 submachine gun (MAC 11) in an open dresser drawer, as well as three small bags of marijuana on top of another dresser.
One officer further testified that the MAC 11 was under a piece of paper. A photograph admitted into evidence showed the gun on top of an envelope which was addressed to defendant at a different location. Although the officer did not remember if the envelope was in the drawer when he found the gun, another officer who arrived three hours later said that he saw the envelope under the gun and that the gun appeared to have blood on it.
The officer who found the MAC 11 also searched a second bedroom where, in an open dresser drawer, the officer found an unloaded revolver, money, and an envelope. When he searched the kitchen, he saw a window covered with bullet holes, a loaded gun in an open drawer, a marijuana cigarette, and loose marijuana on the floor amid broken glass.
According to one of the officers, defendant provided an incorrect name and birthdate and said he lived with his aunt and was shot outside of her home. However, defendant later told this officer that he had paid $100 to stay in the extra room of someone named Paul after his aunt kicked him. Defendant was in Paul’s kitchen when he hard the gunshots. Paul fled the apartment, while defendant ran to the back bedroom where he discovered that he had been shot, then ran upstairs to ask a neighbor to call 911.
The prosecutor did not present any evidence as to who was renting or living in the apartment or whether the police had made any efforts to locate Paul. Nor was there evidence disputing defendant’s statements to the police that he lived with his aunt. No fingerprints were recovered from any of the weapons, but a criminalist testified that she determined defendant was one of at least two people who contributed to DNA samples taken from the MAC 11. She could not say where defendant’s DNA was found on the gun or how it had gotten there, and although she did not specifically test for the presence of blood on the gun, she testified that it was possible that defendant’s blood dripped onto the gun or that the blood was transferred there by a third party. The officer who collected the DNA sample testified that he did not remember seeing blood on any of the guns.
Based on the trial evidence, defendant requested that the court charge the jury on voluntary possession of the gun as follows: “Under our law, possession of the [MAC 11], to be criminal must be voluntary possession…It is voluntary when the possessor is aware of his or her physical possession or control of the MAC 11 for a sufficient period to have been able to terminate possession.”
The prosecutor objected, arguing that if the jury believed the defendant’s testimony, there was no way for it to find that he physically or constructively possessed the firearm at all, thereby making voluntariness irrelevant. The court, however, readily recognized defense counsel’s “point” in seeking the instruction and clarified for the prosecutor that defendant’s testimony was that “he didn’t have [the firearm]…long enough to be considered voluntary possession.” Further, the court noted that the proposed instruction came “right out of the definition section of culpability in the Penal Law.” However, the court believed that the voluntary possession instruction was “more confusing than helpful” and denied the requested charge.
The court instructed the jury as to knowing possession with intent. During deliberation, the jury requested definitions of “possession” “knowingly” and “intent.” The jury acquitted defendant of fourth-degree criminal possession of a loaded firearm found in the kitchen and second-degree criminal possession of the MAC 11 with intent to use it unlawfully, but convicted him of third-degree possession of the MAC 11 and unlawful possession of marijuana.
The court denied defendant’s request for youthful offender status and sentenced him to three years’ incarceration and three years’ post release supervision. The Appellate Division remitted the matter to the Supreme Court for a new determination of defendant’s application for youthful offender status and resentencing. The Court summarily rejected defendant’s challenge to the jury instructions.
Analysis:
Jury Instructions Not at Trial Court’s Discretion, But Dictated by Facts of the Case
A trail court must instruct the jury on “the material legal principles applicable to the particular case, and, so far as practicable, explain the application of the law to the facts” (CPL 300.10 [2]). The charge “must be tailored to the facts of the particular case” (People v Baskerville, 60 NY2d 374, 382 [1983]), including instructing the jury on expanded statutory definitions when necessary. In determining whether to issue a particular instruction, the court “must view the evidence adduced at trial in the light most favorable to the defendant” (People v Zona, 14 NY3d 488, 493 [2010]). “The charge must be given if there is evidence reasonably supportive of the defense, even if there is other evidence which, if credited, would negate it” (People v McKenzie, 19 NY3d 463, 466 [2012]).
‘Voluntary Possession’ Requires Knowing Possession for ‘Sufficient Period’
The Court of Appeals found that the trial court’s failure to provide instructions as the voluntary possession was an error that requires reversal. In viewing evidence in the light most favorable to defendant, the trial supported defendant’s requested charge on voluntary possession. Third-degree criminal possession of a weapon must be knowing and voluntary (Penal Law § 265.02), and voluntary possession requires physical possession or control of the firearm for a “sufficient period.”
The charge given to the jury, when read in its totality, was inadequate because it failed to explain that the jury must return a verdict of not guilty if it found that defendant knowingly possessed the gun, albeit for an insufficient period of time to terminate possession. In other words, if the jury found that defendant’s possession was so fleeting that he did not have time to affirmatively end the possession, then the possession was involuntary. While the trial court defined possession that is “knowing,” it did not define possession that is “voluntary.” As the court itself explained, defendant requested the charge to allow the jury to find that he did not have the gun in his possession for the requisite period if time, that is, “long enough to be considered a voluntary possession.”
A reasonable juror could have found that defendant, then 17 years old, was shot in the neck in someone else’s home, and in the frantic moments afterward, while searching for a towel to stanch the bleeding, came close enough to the drawer to both see an object that he thought looked like a gun inside it, and to transfer his DNA to the weapon by bleeding on it (even though he may never have touched it). The trial court denied the voluntary instructions here, not because the requested charge lacked evidentiary support, but because it considered the proposed language “more confusing than helpful.” This determination was in error, as the requested charge did not inject confusion, rather, it addressed an entirely different aspect of the charged possessory crime: the temporal requirement of voluntary possession. The Court of Appeals therefore concluded that the denial of the charge on voluntary possession constitutes reversible error warranting a new trial.