| People v Yeong Sook Shin |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 03099 [61 AD3d 568] |
| April 23, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Yeong Sook Shin, Appellant. |
—[*1] Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Mary C. Farrington of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (William A. Wetzel, J.), rendered October 16,2006, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of murder in the second degree, and sentencing himto a term of 17½ years to life, unanimously affirmed.
Defendant did not preserve his challenges to the legal sufficiency of the evidence (seePeople v Hines, 97 NY2d 56, 61 [2001]), and we decline to review them in the interest ofjustice. As an alternative holding, we also reject them on the merits. We further find that theverdict was not against the weight of the evidence (see People v Danielson, 9 NY3d 342, 348-349 [2007]). There is nobasis for disturbing the jury's determinations concerning credibility. The evidence, whichincluded the testimony of numerous eyewitnesses as well as defendant's statements to the policeand his own trial testimony, established that defendant acted with an "utter disregard for thevalue of human life," as required to establish that he acted with the culpable mental state ofdepraved indifference (People vFeingold, 7 NY3d 288, 296 [2006]). Defendant drove at a fast speed into a crowd thathad spilled into the street after a party. He did not honk, apply his brakes, or try to avoid strikingthe pedestrians. This behavior persisted even after defendant hit five people and one of themlanded on the hood of the car, remained on the hood for three fourths of a block, and fell off,resulting in his death. Additionally, defendant, whose conduct was apparently connected to aprior dispute between members of two ethnic groups, admitted to police he was "showing off."
Defendant expressly waived any objection to the court's charge on depraved indifference,and there is no merit to his claim that he preserved his present challenge to that charge. Wedecline to review this issue in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we find that thecourt's charge, which tracked the language employed by the Court of Appeals inFeingold (7 NY3d at 296) and People v Suarez (6 NY3d 202, 214 [2005]), conveyed the properstandards. Concur—Gonzalez, P.J., Mazzarelli, Saxe, Moskowitz and Richter, JJ.