People v. Cass

OPINION OF THE COURT

Jones, J.

The primary issue we address is whether the trial court properly admitted evidence of defendant’s uncharged murder to rebut defendant’s extreme emotional disturbance defense concerning the murder for which he was on trial. Although we have considered the use of Molineux evidence (People v Molineux, 168 NY 264 [1901]) to rebut a defense predicated on a *556defendant’s impaired state of mind in other contexts (see e.g. People v Santarelli, 49 NY2d 241 [1980] [legal insanity defense]), this appeal presents the first opportunity for the Court to address the use of…