Opinion
15305 Ind. No. 2996/17 Case No. 2019–2007
02-15-2022
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Shawn DANIELS, Defendant–Appellant.
Caprice R. Jenerson, Office of The Appellate Defender, New York (Rosemary Herbert of counsel), and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer U.S. LLP, New York (Olivia P. Greene of counsel), for appellant. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Karl Z. Deuble of counsel), for respondent.
Caprice R. Jenerson, Office of The Appellate Defender, New York (Rosemary Herbert of counsel), and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer U.S. LLP, New York (Olivia P. Greene of counsel), for appellant.
Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Karl Z. Deuble of counsel), for respondent.
Kern, J.P., Oing, Singh, Moulton, Gonza´lez, JJ.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Gregory Carro, J.), rendered December 18, 2018, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of assault in the first degree (two counts) and criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to an aggregate term of eight years, unanimously affirmed.
The verdict was based on legally sufficient evidence and was not against the weight of the evidence (see People v. Danielson, 9 N.Y.3d 342, 348–349, 849 N.Y.S.2d 480, 880 N.E.2d 1 [2007] ). There is no basis for disturbing the jury's credibility determinations. Direct and circumstantial evidence established all the elements of each of the charges.
First, the evidence supports the inference that the victim's injuries were caused by defendant, and not some other participant in the altercation. In particular, a videotape shows defendant dragging some kind of object along the victim's head in the location of his injuries.
Disfigurement, for purposes of both assault convictions ( Penal Law § 120.10[1],[2] ) was established by evidence supporting a reasonable inference that the more than nine-inch readily visible scar on the victim's head was objectively "distressing and objectionable" ( People v. McKinnon, 15 N.Y.3d 311, 315, 910 N.Y.S.2d 767, 937 N.E.2d 524 [2010] ). This inference is supported by, among other things, photographs revealing how this scar appeared at the time of the trial. The evidence also showed that the victim's cuts could only have been caused by a dangerous instrument (see e. g. People v. Tapia, 151 A.D.3d 437, 439, 56 N.Y.S.3d 78 [1st Dept. 2017], affd 33 N.Y.3d 257, 100 N.Y.S.3d 660, 124 N.E.3d 210 [2019] ).