# People v. Suarez

> New York Court of Appeals · December 22, 2005 · 6 N.Y.3d 202

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9725100

## Case

- **Full name:** The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Santos Suarez, Appellant; The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Trisha McPherson, Appellant
- **Court:** New York Court of Appeals
- **Decided:** December 22, 2005
- **Citations:** 6 N.Y.3d 202; 811 N.Y.S.2d 267; 844 N.E.2d 721
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Read
- **Judges:** Rosenblatt, Smith, Read, Graffeo, McPherson, Suarez
- **Cited by:** 277 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9725100

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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 defenda…
- 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 clea…
- 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
- stating that abandoning “helpless and vulnerable victim” who is “highly likely to die ... — arising from a situation created by the defendant — properly establishes depraved indifference murder”

## Opinion text

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.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9725100. Public record. Not legal advice.