explaining that depraved indifference murder is “established when a defendant — acting with a conscious objective not to kill but to harm — engages in torture or a brutal, prolonged and ultimately fatal course of conduct against a particularly vulnerable victim. When a defendant’s actions serve to intensify or prolong a victim’s suffering, they bespeak a level of cruelty that establishes the depravity mandated by statute.”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that depraved indifference murder is “established when a defendant — acting with a conscious objective not to kill but to harm — engages in torture or a brutal, prolonged and ultimately fatal course of conduct against a particularly vulnerable victim. When a defendant’s actions serve to intensify or prolong a victim’s suffering, they bespeak a level of cruelty that establishes the depravity mandated by statute.”
- holding that depraved indifference murder “properly applies only to a small, and finite, category of cases where the conduct is at least as morally reprehensible as intentional murder” and admitting to “departing] slightly from the Register formulation ... in that we make clear that the additional requirement of depraved indifference has meaning independent of the gravity of the risk”
- observing that "a one-on-one shooting or knifing (or similar killing) can almost never qualify as depraved indifference murder" under N.Y. Penal Law § 125.25(2
- observing that “[q]uintessential examples” of depraved indifference murder include “firing into a crowd” (citing People v. Jernatowski, 238 N.Y. 188, 192, 144 N.E. 497 (1924
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Read, J. (concurring).
On constraint of our decision in People v Payne ( 3 NY3d 266 [2004]), I concur with the result in People v Suarez. On constraint of our decisions in People v Hafeez ( 100 NY2d 253 [2003]) and Payne , I concur with the result in People v McPherson. For all the reasons expressed by Judge Graffeo, I find the majority’s rationale for deviating from our longstanding precedent and reinterpreting Penal Law article 125 to be unconvincing. As Judge Graffeo further points out, our jurisprudence in this area now raises a significant public policy issue that only the Legislature can resolve.