Opinion
10716 10716A Ind. 702/18
01-07-2020
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Travis BUTLER, Defendant–Respondent.
Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (Joshua P. Weiss of counsel), for appellant. The Bronx Defenders, Bronx (Courtney S. Dixon of counsel), for respondent.
Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (Joshua P. Weiss of counsel), for appellant.
The Bronx Defenders, Bronx (Courtney S. Dixon of counsel), for respondent.
Friedman, J.P., Webber, Singh, Moulton, JJ.
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Robert E. Torres, J.), entered on or about November 20, 2018, which, to the extent appealed from, dismissed 10 counts of the indictment upon inspection of the grand jury minutes, unanimously reversed, on the law, the motion to dismiss denied, and the dismissed counts reinstated. Appeal from order, same court and Justice, entered on or about March 7, 2019, which effectively granted reargument, and upon reargument, adhered to its original order, unanimously dismissed, as academic.
The grand jury testimony established, among other things, that after defendant and another man approached the victim, defendant cut the victim's forehead with a razor blade, the other man hit the victim in the back of the head with a hard object, and both men punched the victim. Immediately after the attack, the victim noticed that the cell phone he had used shortly before the attack was missing. Either directly or by way of reasonable circumstantial inferences, this evidence was sufficient to support an indictment for each of the robbery, larceny, weapon and assault-related charges that the court dismissed (see generally People v. Swamp , 84 N.Y.2d 725, 730, 622 N.Y.S.2d 472, 646 N.E.2d 774 [1995] ; People v. Deegan , 69 N.Y.2d 976, 979, 516 N.Y.S.2d 651, 509 N.E.2d 345 [1987] ).