Garner v. Lee

Debra Ann Livingston, Circuit Judge:

One night in April 2002, Karl Keith ("Keith"), a 20-year-old student at Westchester Community College who lived with his parents, and Jesse Merkelson ("Merkelson"), his cousin and a 23-year-old college student at Carnegie Mellon University, met in a parking lot with Petitioner-Appellee Blair Garner ("Garner") for the purpose of purchasing ecstasy and cocaine. Within a few hours, Keith had been robbed of thousands of dollars, shot in the head, and left to die in a pool of his own blood in the middle of an unlit, deserted street in North Amityville, New York.…