People v. Simmons

OPINION OF THE COURT

Saxe, J.E

The trial court in this matter correctly instructed the jury as to its task of deciding whether defendant harbored the requisite intent to be convicted of attempted assault in the first degree. We find that when the charge is considered as a whole, the court’s supplemental instruction, responding to the request for clarification of whether intent can be formed on the spur of the moment, would not have led the jury to believe that the court was taking the question out of the jury’s hands and simply informing it that such intent had been established. We therefore…