| People v O'Toole |
| 2012 NY Slip Op 04381 [96 AD3d 435] |
| June 7, 2012 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Donald O'Toole, Appellant. |
—[*1] Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Timothy C. Stone of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Lewis Bart Stone, J.), rendered October 14,2008, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of robbery in the second degree, and sentencinghim, as a second violent felony offender, to a term of 15 years, unanimously reversed, on the law,and the matter remanded for a new trial.
At defendant's first trial, which resulted in a reversal by this Court (39 AD3d 419 [2007]),defendant was convicted of second-degree robbery but acquitted of first-degree robbery and twocounts of attempted second-degree grand larceny. Therefore, under the facts presented, thePeople were barred by collateral estoppel from presenting evidence at the retrial that defendant'saccomplice pointed what appeared to be a pistol at the complaining witness during the allegedrobbery, and that defendant also attempted to extort regular payments of protection money fromthe complaining witness on the day of the robbery and on a later occasion. The court erred inallowing the introduction of this evidence.
"The doctrine of collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, operates in a criminal prosecution tobar relitigation of issues necessarily resolved in [a] defendant's favor at an earlier trial"(People v Acevedo, 69 NY2d 478, 484 [1987]). "[C]ourts considering such claims mustgive a practical, rational reading to the record of the first trial" (id. at 487).
Characterizing the acquittals as resulting from inadequate corroboration of the complainingwitness's testimony, the People urge this Court to treat this scenario in the same manner as casesin which a defendant is acquitted of crimes subject to the statutory requirement that the testimonyof an accomplice be corroborated. This argument is unavailing. When a statutory corroborationrequirement governs, the possibility exists that an acquittal flows not from a factual issue beingresolved in the defendant's favor as a purely factual matter, but "merely [because] the People hadnot met the requirement of corroboration" (People v Goodman, [*2]69 NY2d 32, 42 [1986]). The same cannot be said here, where nostatutory corroboration requirement was applicable.
In view of this disposition, we do not reach defendant's other contentions.Concur—Gonzalez, P.J., Friedman, Renwick, Manzanet-Daniels and Román, JJ.