People v. Figueroa

Appeal by defendant from a judgment of the County Court, Nassau County, rendered September 15, 1978, convicting him of criminally negligent homicide, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. Judgment reversed, on the law, and new trial ordered. In our view it was error for the trial court to charge the jury that it was to consider the lesser included crime of reckless endangerment in the second degree "only if you have determined that the conduct of Hector Figueroa [the defendant] did not cause the death of Linda Figueroa”, and later that "In reckless endangerment you must believe beyond a…