PEOPLE, res, v. CARLOS VALENTIN, def-ap

14221. PEOPLE, res, v. CARLOS VALENTIN, def-ap — Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Robert S. Dean of counsel), for ap — Anthony A. Scarpino, Jr., Special District Attorney, White Plains (Virginia A. Marciano of counsel), for res — Upon remittitur from the Court of Appeals for further consideration (29 NY3d 57 [2017]), judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Robert A. Sackett, J.), rendered September 28, 2011, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of manslaughter in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 20 years, unanimously reversed, as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, and the matter remanded for a new trial.

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14221. PEOPLE, res, v. CARLOS VALENTIN, def-ap — Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Robert S. Dean of counsel), for ap — Anthony A. Scarpino, Jr., Special District Attorney, White Plains (Virginia A. Marciano of counsel), for res — Upon remittitur from the Court of Appeals for further consideration (29 NY3d 57 [2017]), judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Robert A. Sackett, J.), rendered September 28, 2011, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of manslaughter in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 20 years, unanimously reversed, as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, and the matter remanded for a new trial.

In his 2015 appeal to this Court, defendant argued, among other things, that the trial court, under the facts of this case, erred by including an initial aggressor instruction in the justification charge (see Penal Law §35.15). A majority of this Court, with one Justice dissenting, agreed, holding that the jury “could not have reasonably found that defendant was the initial aggressor because the evidence does not support such a conclusion” (128 AD3d 428, 428 [1st Dept 2015]). We further held that the error was not harmless, reasoning that “[d]efendant’s justification defense presented a close question of whether defendant had a reasonable basis for his use of deadly force, and the charging error could have affected the verdict because the jury might have concluded that defendant was the initial aggressor and, thus, not entitled to a justification defense” (id. at 429). Because we reversed the judgment of conviction and remanded the matter for a new trial, we did not address defendant’s contentions that (1) the court erred by failing to instruct the jury that if it acquitted defendant of the count of murder in the second degree based on the justification defense, the jury was not to consider the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree, and (2) the sentence was excessive.

PEOPLE, res, v. CARLOS VALENTIN, def-ap

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