People v. Aiken

4 N.Y.3d 324 (2005)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D and the victim were next-door neighbors in the same apartment building in the Bronx for nearly 40 years, virtually their entire lives. Their families were close until 1994 when a dispute arose over cable and telephone wiring. The victim believed that D was siphoning off their services, even after the service providers found that the suspicion was without basis. In 1997, following a heated verbal exchange, the victim stabbed D in the back, hospitalizing him for two days. The victim repeatedly threatened to shoot, stab or otherwise injure D. He made these threats to D's face, to his father, and neighbors--at one point even brandishing a box cutter. On December 21, 1999, D and the victim argued through the shared bedroom wall between their apartments. Using a metal pipe, D knocked an indentation into his side of the wall. The victim then left his apartment to go downstairs and open the building's front door for the police, who responded to the 911 call his mother had made about D. D, inside his apartment, walked to his front door several times, opening it and looking into the public hall until he saw the victim there with a friend. D (while remaining in his doorway) then engaged in an angry argument with the victim. The victim reached into his pocket came up to D's face 'nose to nose,' and said 'he was going to kill' him. Believing he was about to be stabbed again, D struck the victim on his head with the metal pipe, killing him. D requested, the trial court instructed the jury as to the Penal Law § 35.15 defense of justification, including that 'a person may nevertheless not use defensive deadly physical force if he knows he can with complete safety to himself avoid such use of deadly physical force by retreating.' D then asked the court to 'charge the jury that if a defendant is in his home and close proximity of a threshold of his home, there is no duty to retreat.' The trial court denied the request ruling: 'D said he was at the doorway, and I don't consider that being inside his home . . . .' The jury convicted him of manslaughter in the first degree, and he was sentenced to a determinate term of 16 years. This appeal eventually resulted.