| People v Meadow |
| 2016 NY Slip Op 04505 [140 AD3d 1596] |
| June 10, 2016 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
[*1]
| The People of the State of New York, Respondent, vRonald Meadow, Appellant. |
Law Offices of Andrew J. Frisch, New York City (Andrew J. Frisch of counsel) andCuti Hecker Wang LLP, for defendant-appellant.
William J. Fitzpatrick, District Attorney, Syracuse (James P. Maxwell of counsel),for respondent.
Appeal from a judgment of the Onondaga County Court (Anthony F. Aloi, J.),rendered December 12, 2014. The judgment convicted defendant, upon a jury verdict, ofmurder in the second degree.
It is hereby ordered that the judgment so appealed from is unanimously reversed onthe law and a new trial is granted.
Memorandum: On appeal from a judgment convicting him following a jury trial ofmurder in the second degree (Penal Law § 125.25 [1]), defendant contendsthat County Court erred in admitting hearsay testimony from multiple prosecutionwitnesses, thereby depriving him of a fair trial. The witnesses in question testified tostatements the victim made to them concerning defendant's prior violent and threateningbehavior toward the victim. We agree with defendant that the court erred in allowing thattestimony over his objection, and we therefore grant defendant a new trial.
On March 6, 1985, the victim's body was found face-first on the floor of herSyracuse apartment with her hands tied behind her back and a cloth belt around her neck.The Medical Examiner determined that she had been strangled to death sometimebetween 7:00 p.m. on March 4, 1985 and 3:10 a.m. the next morning. Although theapartment had been ransacked, there were no signs of a forced entry, and the victim hadnot been sexually assaulted. The police questioned several suspects, including defendant,the victim's estranged husband. The couple had separated approximately six monthsearlier and, according to several of the victim's friends and relatives, the victim said thatdefendant had beaten her in the past and threatened to kill her. Defendant denied killingthe victim and offered an alibi. The investigation thereafter stalled, and defendant movedto Georgia.
Although the police continued to view defendant as a suspect, he was not arresteduntil nearly 30 years later, after a Y-STR DNA analysis was performed on a smallamount of DNA material found under the victim's fingernails, which had been clippedand preserved during the autopsy. The DNA expert who conducted the testing concludedthat defendant's Y-STR profile was consistent with the DNA found under the victim'sfingernails, and that neither defendant nor any of his paternal relatives could be excludedas the source of the DNA. According to the expert, one in every 4,600 males chosen atrandom would have Y-STR DNA consistent with that found under the victim'sfingernails. Based on the new evidence, defendant was returned to Syracuse fromGeorgia and charged with murder in the second degree.
Prior to trial, defendant moved in limine to preclude the People from calling variouswitnesses to testify that the victim had told them that defendant had beaten her in the pastand threatened to kill her. According to defendant, such testimony was not admissibleunder People v Molineux (168 NY 264 [1901]), and, in any event, constitutedinadmissible hearsay. In response, the [*2]People arguedthat the evidence was relevant to "defendant's intent, motive, and identity as [the] killer,"and it was admissible because it would "provide the jury with background informationregarding the strife-ridden relationship between defendant and the victim." With respectto defendant's hearsay contention, the People asserted that the evidence was admissibleunder the "state of mind exception" to the rule against hearsay. Following a hearing, thecourt denied defendant's motion in limine, ruling that "in a domestic violence type ofcase, or other cases for that matter, that kind of testimony is allowable if it's relevant tothe issue of intent, motive, [or] identity."
During the trial, consistent with the court's ruling, the victim's aunt testified that thevictim told her in 1979—six years before the murder—that defendant"handcuffed her to a chair and left her there for a little while because he didn't want herto go or do something." The victim's sister testified that she, too, heard the victim say thatdefendant had handcuffed her. The sister further testified that the victim told her two orthree times that defendant had beaten her, and that the victim also said that she washaving trouble sleeping because defendant "had threatened to kill her if she didn't comeback to him." Finally, a friend of the victim testified that the victim told her over dinnerone night that defendant had threatened to kill her.
Defendant repeatedly objected to the above testimony on hearsay grounds, amongothers, but the court overruled the objections. The court instructed the jurors, however,that the "evidence was not offered and it is not allowed by this Court and must not beconsidered for the purpose of proving that the defendant, Ron Meadow, had thepropensity or predisposition to commit the crimes charged in this case." The courtrepeated that instruction each time it overruled defendant's hearsay objections. Duringthe charge conference, defense counsel asked the court to instruct the jury that it shouldnot consider the victim's out-of-court statements regarding defendant's prior bad acts forthe truth of the matters asserted therein. The People opposed the request, and the courtdenied it. After deliberating for more than six hours, the jury convicted defendant ofintentional murder, and the court later sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.
As a preliminary matter, we reject the People's contention that defendant failed topreserve his hearsay contention for our review. As noted, defendant moved in limine topreclude the subject testimony on hearsay grounds, and then objected to the testimony attrial on that same ground. Defendant thereby afforded the court ample "opportunity tocorrect any error in the proceedings below at a time when the issue can be dealt withmost effectively" (People v Lopez, 71 NY2d 662, 665 [1988]; see CPL470.05 [2]).
With respect to the merits, it is well settled that "[o]ut-of-court statements offered forthe truth of the matters they assert are hearsay and 'may be received in evidence only ifthey fall within one of the recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule, and then only if theproponent demonstrates that the evidence is reliable' " (Nucci v Proper,95 NY2d 597, 602 [2001], quoting People v Brensic, 70 NY2d 9, 14 [1987]).Here, there is no dispute that the statements of the victim at issue were made out of court,and the People do not contend that an exception to the hearsay rule applies. Instead, thePeople contend that the statements are not hearsay because they were not offered for thetruth of the matters asserted therein. We reject that contention. In our view, thestatements were offered to establish that defendant had, in fact, physically abused thevictim and threatened to kill her. Indeed, when defense counsel asked the court toinstruct the jury that the statements should not be considered for the truth of the mattersasserted, the People opposed the request, and the court denied it. Moreover, during hisopening and closing statements, the prosecutor used the statements for the truth of thematters asserted. For example, the prosecutor asserted that, following her separation fromdefendant, the victim "began to disclose certain things to members of her family. Thingsthat she had kept to herself for a number of years. She began to talk about the beatingsthat she suffered from this defendant. The controlling behavior and conduct that heexhibited. And when she finally got her freedom and an apartment of her own and wasanxiously awaiting the start of her life, she finally disclosed that, in fact, on morethan one occasion the defendant had threatened to kill her" (emphasis added). Similarly,during his summation, the prosecutor stated that "[t]he man who did it was the man whosaid that he was going to do it." As the statements of the prosecutor illustrate, he assumedthe truth of the statements attributed to the victim and used them to argue that defendantcommitted the murder.
In addition, we note that the court, in its final instructions to the jury, stated that therewas[*3]"evidence in this case that the defendant madecertain alleged threats to kill his wife during the marriage and that he had restrained herby tying her or handcuffing her, and there has been other testimony as well regarding anddescribing the nature of the relationship during the marriage." That instruction suggestedto the jury that the hearsay statements at issue were offered for the truth of the mattersasserted therein. Although the court instructed the jurors that such evidence "was notoffered and must not be considered for the purpose of proving that the defendant had apropensity or predisposition to commit the crime of murder in the second degree," thatdid not address the hearsay problem. Again, the court refused to instruct the jury that itshould not consider the subject hearsay statements for the truth of the mattersasserted.
Citing Molineux and other like cases, including People v Alvino (71NY2d 233 [1987]), the People argue that evidence of defendant's prior threats andphysical abuse of the victim were highly relevant for various nonhearsay purposes, suchas establishing background information, revealing the state of mind of the victim anddefendant, and demonstrating his motive and intent to kill the victim. As defendantcorrectly points out, however, there is no Molineux exception to the rule againsthearsay. It may be true that evidence that defendant beat and threatened to kill the victimis admissible under a Molineux theory, but such evidence must still be inadmissible form. For instance, a witness could testify that he or she witnessed defendantassault the victim, or heard defendant threaten the victim. That is not hearsay. It ishearsay, however, for a witness to testify that someone else told him or her that defendantbeat or threatened the victim.
The People rely on People v Bierenbaum (301 AD2d 119 [2002], lvdenied 99 NY2d 626 [2003]), where, as one trial court has noted, the FirstDepartment "essentially creates or recognizes an exception to the hearsay rule whichwould permit hearsay evidence in domestic violence prosecutions as 'backgroundinformation' " (People vHarris, 15 Misc 3d 994, 1003 [2007]). Neither we nor the Court of Appeals hasrecognized a so-called "background exception" to the hearsay rule in criminal casesarising out of incidents of domestic violence, and we decline to do so here. In fact,Bierenbaum appears to be inconsistent with People v Maher (89 NY2d456 [1997]). In that case, the defendant was charged with killing his estranged paramourand the trial court permitted prosecution witnesses to testify about statements made tothem by the victim concerning the defendant's violent and threatening behavior. TheCourt of Appeals held that the testimony regarding the victim's out-of-court statementsconstituted inadmissible hearsay. Relying on Maher, we reached a similarconclusion in People v Harvey (270 AD2d 959 [2000], lv denied 95NY2d 835 [2000], lv dismissed 95 NY2d 853 [2000]), ruling that "the court erredin permitting the People to introduce the statements of decedent to third parties that onprevious occasions defendant physically abused her" (id. at 960). We perceive noreason in the record to reach a different conclusion here.
The question thus becomes whether the error was harmless. "Under the standardapplicable to nonconstitutional errors, an error is harmless if the proof of defendant'sguilt is overwhelming and there is no significant probability that the jury would haveacquitted defendant had the error not occurred" (People v Williams, 25 NY3d 185, 194 [2015]; seePeople v Crimmins, 36 NY2d 230, 242 [1975]). Here, it cannot be said that the proofof guilt was overwhelming. There were no eyewitnesses, and defendant, wheninterrogated at length by the police, consistently denied his guilt. Although defendantadmitted to the police that he had physically abused the victim at times during themarriage, he did not admit to having threatened to kill her. We note that the police didnot arrest defendant until almost 30 years after the murder was committed, evidentlyconcluding that there was not enough evidence to charge him. The only new evidencethat the police had when defendant was arrested were the DNA test results, which,although incriminating, do not constitute conclusive proof of guilt. In any event, evenassuming, arguendo, that the proof of guilt is overwhelming, we cannot conclude thatthere is no significant probability that the verdict would have been different if the juryhad not learned that defendant had threatened to kill the victim. We therefore reverse thejudgment and grant a new trial.
We have reviewed defendant's remaining contention and conclude that it lacks merit.Present—Smith, J.P., Lindley, Curran and Troutman, JJ.