Opinion
No. 30 SSM 29
02-11-2021
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Danielle ALLEN, Appellant.
Myers Buth Law Group PLLC, Orchard Park (Cheryl Myers Bluth of counsel), and Joel L. Daniels, Buffalo, for appellant. Gregory J. McCaffrey, District Attorney, Geneseo (Joshua J. Tonra of counsel), for respondent.
Myers Buth Law Group PLLC, Orchard Park (Cheryl Myers Bluth of counsel), and Joel L. Daniels, Buffalo, for appellant.
Gregory J. McCaffrey, District Attorney, Geneseo (Joshua J. Tonra of counsel), for respondent.
OPINION OF THE COURT
MEMORANDUM. The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed. Defendant raised a defense of justification and the People consequently had the burden of demonstrating "beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's conduct was not justified" ( People v. Umali, 10 N.Y.3d 417, 425, 859 N.Y.S.2d 104, 888 N.E.2d 1046 [2008], rearg. denied 11 N.Y.3d 744, 864 N.Y.S.2d 386, 894 N.E.2d 651 [2008], cert denied 556 U.S. 1110, 129 S.Ct. 1595, 173 L.Ed.2d 685 [2009] ). Defendant contends that the evidence against justification is legally insufficient. Legal sufficiency review requires that we view the evidence "in the light most favorable to the prosecution," and, when deciding whether a jury could logically conclude that the prosecution sustained its burden of proof, "[w]e must assume that the jury credited the People's witnesses and gave the prosecution's evidence the full weight it might reasonably be accorded" ( People v. Gordon, 23 N.Y.3d 643, 649, 992 N.Y.S.2d 700, 16 N.E.3d 1178 [2014] [internal quotation marks omitted]). Viewing the evidence—including the testimony of a forensic consultant who was qualified, without objection, by the trial court as an expert in crime scene reconstruction and bloodstain pattern analysis—in that light, we conclude that there is a valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences from which a rational jury could have found that the People disproved the defense of justification beyond a reasonable doubt.
Chief Judge DiFiore and Judges Rivera, Stein, Fahey, Garcia, Wilson and Feinman concur.
On review of submissions pursuant to section 500.11 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals ( 22 NYCRR 500.11 ), order affirmed, in a memorandum.