People v. Hernandez

OPINION OF THE COURT

This appeal raises the question whether a conviction of felony murder under Penal Law § 125.25 (3) should be sustained where the homicide victim, a police officer, was shot not by one of the defendants but by a fellow officer during a gun battle following defendants’ attempted robbery. Under the

Defendants Santana and Hernandez conspired to ambush and rob a man who was coming to a New York City apartment building to buy drugs. The plan was to have Santana lure him into the building stairwell where Hernandez waited with a gun. In fact, the man was an undercover State Trooper, wearing a transmitter, and backed up by fellow officers.

Once the Trooper was inside the building, Hernandez accosted him and pointed a gun at his head. A fight ensued during which the officer announced that he was a policeman, pulled out his service revolver and began firing. In the confusion, Hernandez, still armed, ran from the building into a courtyard where he encountered members of the police backup unit. They ordered him to halt. Instead, he aimed his gun at one of the officers and moved toward him. The officers began firing, and one, Trooper Joseph Aversa, was fatally shot in the head. His body was found near the area where Hernandez was apprehended after being wounded. Santana was arrested inside the building.

The evidence at trial did not establish who killed Aversa, but the People concede that it effectively eliminated the possibility that either defendant was the shooter. Separate juries were empaneled for the two cases, and both defendants were convicted of felony murder and other charges.

On appeal, defendants contend that the felony murder charges should have been dismissed because neither one of them fired the fatal shot. The Appellate Division rejected that argument. Even though a fellow officer shot Aversa, the Court concluded that defendants were properly held responsible for felony murder because their conduct "unquestionably 'forged’ a critical link in the chain of events that led to Trooper Aversa’s death” ( 186 AD2d 471 , 473).

Some 30 years ago, this Court affirmed the dismissal of a felony murder charge on the grounds that neither the defendant nor a cofelon had fired the weapon that caused the deaths (People v Wood, 8 NY2d 48 ). In Wood, the defendant and his companions were escaping from a fight outside a

In 1965, the Legislature revised the felony murder statute by removing the language that had been dispositive in Wood and replacing it with a provision holding a person culpable for felony murder when, during the commission of an enumerated felony or attempt, either the defendant or an accomplice "causes the death of a person other than one of the participants” (Penal Law § 125.25 [3]). Thus, this appeal raises the question of whether Wood remains good law despite the recasting of the Penal Law. The question is one of first impression for this Court, although some Appellate Division panels have continued to adhere to the Wood rule that the shooter must be a participant in the underlying felony (see, e.g., People v Castro, 141 AD2d 658 , lv denied 72 NY2d 1044 ; People v Ramos, 116 AD2d 462 ).

The People believe those Appellate Division decisions to be in error. They premise their argument on the established construction of the term "causes the death”, which is now the operative language in the Penal Law. That term is used consistently throughout article 125 and has been construed to mean that homicide is properly charged when the defendant’s

Ill

Analysis begins with the statute. The causal language used in our felony murder provision and elsewhere in the homicide statutes has consistently been construed by this Court according to the rule in People v Kibbe ( 35 NY2d 407 , supra), where we held that the accused need not commit the final, fatal act to be culpable for causing death. To accept defendants’ analysis would require that we hold that the phrase "causes the death” in subdivision (3), the felony murder paragraph of section 125.25, means something entirely different than it does in subdivisions (1) and (2) of the very same section. That is contrary to the normal rules of statutory construction (see, People v Bolden, 81 NY2d 146 , 151).

That rule of construction must bend, of course, if in fact the Legislature intended the language to have a unique meaning within the context of the felony murder provision, but the legislative history of the 1965 revision reveals nothing about whether the Legislature intended to overturn People v Wood. Defendants read that silence to mean that no such substantive change in the law was envisioned by the Legislature, and they

Defendants’ position is problematic for several reasons. First, it asks us to find in the ambiguous silence of the legislative record grounds for contradicting the unambiguous language of the statute. Second, it assumes that the Legislature intended an unusually narrow construction of the word "causes” even though New York homicide decisions had defined causality more expansively (see, e.g., People v Kane, 213 NY 260 , 270 [error in medical treatment provided to victim does not relieve attacker of liability]). It assumes also that in choosing the statutory language the Legislature and the Temporary State Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code, which drafted the amended provision, disregarded the well-defined debate over the difference between "causing” a homicide and "committing” a homicide (see, e.g., Morris, The Felon’s Responsibility for the Lethal Acts of Others, 105 U Pa L Rev 50 [1956]). The Legislature could easily have written into subdivision (3) the limitation endorsed by defendants — as it did with the limitation applying to the death of a cofelon — but it chose not to do so.

Third and more serious, defendants’ argument is premised on the assumption that the relevant common law pertaining to felony murder was uniform and unambiguous at the time the Legislature acted in 1965. In fact, the leading American case for limiting felony murder liability, Commonwealth v Redline ( 391 Pa 486 , 137 A2d 472 , supra), which was decided shortly before People v Wood, overturned prior case law in Pennsylvania. Variations on the felony murder doctrine were widespread in American jurisprudence, with liability turning on such factors as whether the victim was one of the felons, whether the felons initiated the gun battle and whether the deceased had been used as a shield by defendant (see, People v Washington, 62 Cal 2d 777 , 402 P2d 130 , supra; Commonwealth v Redline, supra).

Nor can it be contended that the limited view of felony murder liability was clearly the law in New York at the time the Legislature acted. In People v Wood, we noted that two of our decisions had incidentally endorsed the idea that the felon must be the killer (see, People v Giro, 197 NY 152 ; and People v Udwin, 254 NY 255 ), but we expressly left open questions concerning "the application of the rules of causation and foreseeability” (People v Wood, supra, at 53). Earlier, in People

In light of the statutory language and the case law prior to the revision, we conclude that the Legislature intended what appears obvious from the face of the statute: that "causes” in the felony murder provision should be accorded the same meaning it is given in subdivisions (1) and (2) of section 125.25 of the Penal Law.

Unlike defendants and those courts adopting the so-called agency theory, we believe New York’s view of causality, based on a proximate cause theory, to be consistent with fundamental principles of criminal law. Advocates of the agency theory suggest that no culpable party has the requisite mens rea when a nonparticipant is the shooter. We disagree. The basic tenet of felony murder liability is that the mens rea of the underlying felony is imputed to the participant responsible for the killing (People v Wood, 8 NY2d 48 , 51, supra). By operation of that legal fiction, the transferred intent allows the law to characterize a homicide, though unintended and not in the common design of the felons, as an intentional killing (id.). Thus, the presence or absence of the requisite mens rea is an issue turning on whether the felon is acting in furtherance of the underlying crime at the time of the homicide, not on the proximity or attenuation of the death resulting from the felon’s acts. Whether the death is an immediate result or an attenuated one, the necessary mens rea is present if the causal act is part of the felonious conduct.

No more persuasive is the argument that the proximate cause view will extend criminal liability unreasonably. First, New York law is clear that felony murder does not embrace any killing that is coincidental with the felony but instead is limited to those deaths caused by one of the felons in furtherance of their crime (People v Ryan, 263 NY 298 ). More than civil tort liability must be established; criminal liability will adhere only when the felons’ acts are a sufficiently direct cause of the death (People v Kibbe, 35 NY2d 407 , 412-413, supra). When the intervening acts of another party are super

Second, the New York felony murder statute spells out the affirmative defense available to the accomplice who does not cause the death (see, Penal Law § 125.25 [3] [a]-[d]). Defendants assert that our construction of the statute’s causality language will mean that an accomplice whose partner is the shooter will have a defense but one whose unarmed partner causes the death will not. The plain language of the statute does not support that proposition. The statutory defense is available to the accomplice who (a) does not cause the death, (b) is unarmed, (c) has no reason to believe that the cofelon is armed and (d) has no reason to believe that the cofelon will "engage in conduct likely to result in death or serious physical injury”. Thus, by its terms, the defense is not limited to situations where the cofelon kills with a weapon; it applies as well to instances where some other "conduct likely to result in death” is not within the contemplation of the accomplice.

In short, our established common-law rules governing determinations of causality and the availability of the statutory defense provide adequate boundaries to felony murder liability. The language of Penal Law § 125.25 (3) evinces the Legislature’s desire to extend liability broadly to those who commit serious crimes in ways that endanger the lives of others. That other States choose more narrow approaches is of no moment to our statutory scheme. Our Legislature has chosen not to write those limitations into our law, and we are bound by that legislative determination.

Finally, we conclude that there was no error in the court’s instructions on defendant Santana’s culpability. The jury was properly charged that more than "but for” causation was required; that it must find the fatal result was the sufficiently direct and foreseeable result of Hernandez’s acts (see, People v Kibbe, 35 NY2d 407 , 413, supra).

Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.

Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Titone, Hancock, Jr., Bellacosa, Smith and Levine concur.

Order affirmed.