In a procedurally complex case, the New York Court of Appeals recently issued a decision reversing an appellate court’s decision in favor of the criminal defendant. The defendant originally faced charges after he broke into a college dormitory, supposedly attempting to sexually assault girls in the dormitory. At trial, the defendant was convicted of second-degree burglary but acquitted of a second offense, “burglary in the second degree as a sexually motivated felony.” He appealed; the appellate court reversed; and the New York Court of Appeals ultimately reversed again to reinstate the defendant’s conviction of burglary in the second degree.
Burglary v. Burglary as a Sexually Motivated Felony
The state first charged the defendant with “burglary in the second degree as a sexually motivated felony.” Under this charge, the prosecution would have to show that the defendant 1) committed the burglary and 2) committed the burglary because, in substantial part, of his own sexual gratification.
The defendant’s case went to trial, and the prosecution asked the court to charge the jury on burglary in the second degree as a “lesser included offense” of burglary as a sexually motivated felony. This request essentially means that the prosecution wanted the trial court to recognize that burglary in the second-degree offense has some elements of the sexually motivated felony, and that if the jury found the defendant guilty of burglary in the second degree as a sexually motivated felony, the defendant would also be guilty of burglary in the second degree.
The trial court granted the prosecution’s request, and the jury found the defendant guilty only of burglary in the second degree. The appellate division later reversed the burglary conviction. According to the appellate court, the prosecution had improperly charged the defendant with the burglary offense (the “lesser included offense”). In bringing both offenses to the table, the prosecution denied the defendant the opportunity to defend himself against the burglary offense; instead, the defendant only knew that he was supposed to focus on the sexually motivated offense.
On the second appeal, however, the higher court reversed the appellate court’s ruling. The prosecution, said the court, never abandoned the burglary charge to pursue the “sexually motivated” charge. The defendant had sufficient notice of both offenses, and the prosecution properly presented both charges to the jury. The defendant was able to sufficiently defend against both offenses, and therefore the original decision to convict the defendant of burglary in the second degree would be reinstated. It is not unusual during a trial for the Defendant, or sometimes even the prosecutor, to ask that the jury be instructed on a lesser included offense.
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