| People v Heck |
| 2013 NY Slip Op 00620 [103 AD3d 1140] |
| February 1, 2013 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
| The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v DavidHeck, Appellant. |
—[*1] Frank A. Sedita, III, District Attorney, Buffalo (Michael J. Hillery of counsel), forrespondent.
Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Erie County (M. William Boller,A.J.), rendered March 25, 2011. The judgment convicted defendant, upon a jury verdict,of murder in the second degree.
It is hereby ordered that the judgment so appealed from is unanimously affirmed.
Memorandum: Defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him upon a juryverdict of murder in the second degree (Penal Law § 125.25 [1]) for havingintentionally caused his mother's death at their home in the Town of Tonawanda,contending that reversal is required for a number of reasons. We first address defendant'schallenges to the weight and sufficiency of the evidence of his guilt (see generallyPeople v Bleakley, 69 NY2d 490, 495 [1987]). "In assessing legal sufficiency, acourt must determine whether there is any valid line of reasoning and permissibleinferences which could lead a rational person to the conclusion reached by the[factfinder] on the basis of the evidence at trial" when that evidence is viewed in the lightmost favorable to the People (People v Cahill, 2 NY3d 14, 57 [2003] [internal quotationmarks omitted]; see People v Contes, 60 NY2d 620, 621 [1983]). Here, the proofof defendant's guilt is not only legally sufficient to convict, it is also fairly characterizedas overwhelming. The evidence at trial established that defendant failed to notify policeof his mother's death for several days; falsely stated to his neighbors that she was alivedespite his knowledge of her death; staged the crime scene to make it appear that hismother had accidentally fallen and hit her head and then proceeded to tailor his accountof her death accordingly; admitted to a fellow jail inmate while awaiting trial that he hadkilled his mother with a hammer; and had both a motive and the opportunity to committhe crime. In addition, a hammer was missing from the otherwise well-stocked toolbox indefendant's home, and forensic evidence conclusively established that the victim did notdie from a fall, as defendant had originally claimed, but rather from 13 blows to her head.
We similarly reject defendant's contention that the verdict is against the weight of theevidence (see generally Peoplev Danielson, 9 NY3d 342, 348-349 [2007]). Aside from the incriminatingevidence set forth above, defendant's theory of the case at trial, which was not that hismother had died from a fall but rather that an unknown intruder had killed her while hewas out shopping, was unsupported by any credible evidence. Defendant was the onlyperson who [*2]had lawful access to the house apart fromhis mother, and there was no evidence that the house had been broken into or thatanything had been stolen from it. Moreover, the fact that the victim was struck 13 timesin the head is consistent with the People's theory that this was a crime of passion and not,as defense counsel suggested, the act of an intruder who unexpectedly encountered theoccupant of a house in the course of a burglary.
We next consider defendant's challenges to the court's refusal to suppress his variousstatements to police. We initially conclude that the police lawfully entered defendant'shome pursuant to the emergency exception to the warrant requirement of the FourthAmendment to the United States Constitution and art I, § 12 of the New YorkConstitution (see People v Mitchell, 39 NY2d 173, 177-178 [1976], certdenied 426 US 953 [1976]; see also Brigham City v Stuart, 547 US 398, 406[2006]). Here, officers were responding to a 911 call from someone in that house whowas heard moaning and groaning but who did not otherwise speak to the operator. Thus,defendant's statements to police at his home were not the fruit of an unlawful entry, andthe court therefore properly refused to suppress them (see People v Stergiou, 279AD2d 387, 387 [2001], lv denied 96 NY2d 835 [2001]). We note that defendantdoes not contend that he was subjected to custodial interrogation at the home.
Defendant further challenges the admissibility of statements he made to police in theabsence of Miranda warnings while in a private room at Kenmore MercyHospital (KMH), where he had been taken for treatment of a prior self-inflicted woundfollowing the discovery of his mother's body. Although defendant argues that he was incustody at KMH and was thus entitled to Miranda warnings before beinginterrogated there (see generally People v Yukl, 25 NY2d 585, 589 [1969],cert denied 400 US 851 [1970]), the record does not disclose whether, at the timehe made the statements at issue, he was in the custody of KMH mental health authoritiespursuant to Mental Hygiene Law § 9.39 (a) (1) or whether, conversely, he was inthe custody of police pursuant to section 9.41 (see Gonzalez v State of NewYork, 121 Misc 2d 210, 214-215 [1983], revd on other grounds 110 AD2d810 [1985], appeal dismissed 67 NY2d 647 [1986]). While the interplay of thoseprovisions might circumscribe the applicability of the standard Yukl analysis thatdefendant urges us to undertake (see People v Ripic, 182 AD2d 226, 233 [1992],appeal dismissed 81 NY2d 776 [1993]), we ultimately need not consider theissue further because, for the reasons that follow, we conclude that any error in admittingthe KMH statements is harmless under these circumstances.
The error, if any, is harmless primarily because defendant repeated the purportedlyinadmissible statements approximately 3½ hours later to another police officer afterhe was transferred to Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) and advised of hisMiranda rights. Thus, even if the KMH statements should have been suppressed,the ECMC statements would still have been properly admitted at trial; given the passageof time, the involvement of different police personnel, and the change in location, therehad been a "sufficiently 'definite, pronounced break' " in the questioning to dissipate anytaint of a prior Miranda violation upon the later statements (People v Paulman, 5 NY3d122, 130-132 [2005], quoting People v Chapple, 38 NY2d 112, 115 [1975]).We also note that, in both his KMH and ECMC statements, defendant vehemently deniedany involvement in the victim's death and made no direct admissions of guilt. There istherefore no reasonable possibility that defendant would have been acquitted had hisnon-incriminating statements at KMH been suppressed and, because the evidence ofdefendant's guilt is otherwise overwhelming, we conclude that any error in admittingthose statements is harmless (see generally People v Crimmins, 36 NY2d 230,237 [1975]; cf. People vFoster, 72 AD3d 1652, 1655 [2010], lv dismissed 15 NY3d 750[2010]).
We reject defendant's further contention that the court improperly permitted theintroduction of demonstrative evidence at trial in the form of a hammerhead model (see People v Gorham, 72AD3d 1108, 1110 [2010], lv denied 15 NY3d 773 [2010]; Rojas v Cityof New York, 208 AD2d [*3]416, 417 [1994], lvdenied 86 NY2d 705 [1995]; see generally People v Del Vermo, 192 NY470, 482-483 [1908]). We likewise reject defendant's contention that the courtimproperly received the victim's autopsy photographs in evidence. The photographs wererelevant to establish the cause of her death and to counter defendant's statement to thepolice at his home that she had died from an accidental fall (see People vPobliner, 32 NY2d 356, 369-370 [1973], rearg denied 33 NY2d 657 [1973],cert denied 416 US 905 [1974]; People v Alvarez, 38 AD3d 930, 931-932 [2007], lvdenied 8 NY3d 981 [2007]).
Defendant's contention that he was deprived of a fair trial by prosecutorialmisconduct during summation is unpreserved for our review (see People v Romero, 7 NY3d911, 912 [2006]). In any event, although comments by the prosecutor denigratingthe defense's theory of the case were indeed improper (see People v Gordon, 50 AD3d821, 822 [2008]), they were not so pervasive or egregious as to deprive defendant ofa fair trial (see People vJacobson, 60 AD3d 1326, 1328 [2009], lv denied 12 NY3d 916 [2009]).Nor can it be said that defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel due to thelack of any objection to those improper comments. Rather, defense counsel provideddefendant with meaningful representation throughout the proceedings (see generallyPeople v Baldi, 54 NY2d 137, 147 [1981]; cf. People v Fisher, 18 NY3d 964, 966-967 [2012]).
We have considered defendant's remaining contentions and conclude that they lackmerit. Present—Smith, J.P., Peradotto, Lindley, Valentino and Whalen, JJ.