People v. McIntosh

Memorandum: Defendant was convicted, upon his guilty plea, of attempted murder in the first degree. During the plea allocution, defendant insisted that he did not point a gun at a police officer and that, when he first saw the officer, he threw the gun to the ground, causing it to fire accidentally. Once defendant cast doubt upon his guilt by denying that he *949committed an essential element of the crime, the court should not have accepted the plea without making further inquiry into the basis for it to ensure that the defendant was aware of what he was doing (see, People v Serrano, 15 NY2d 304;…