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Kenneth Minor speaking in his sentencing in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he got 20 years to life for the murder of motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker.
A man convicted of killing a depressed Long Island father, who solicited help for his own murder, is getting a new trial.
The Appellate Division in Manhattan Thursday tossed Kenneth Minor’s murder conviction, saying he deserves another trial because the judge’s legal instructions at the first one “essentially gutted his defense.”
Minor, 41, said he helped Jeffrey Locker, 52, kill himself in July 2009 after Locker begged for his help. He said the despondent motivational speaker owed $ 750,000 and was hoping to stage a murder so his family could collect $ 18 million in insurance money.
Minor said that at Locker’s request, he held a knife against the steering wheel of Locker’s car and Locker repeatedly fell into it.
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Locker’s body was found in his car on 30 Palladino Avenue. Locker’s hands were tied behind his back and he had been stabbed multiple times in the abdomen.
Video evidence presented at trial captured Minor on surveillance tape entering Locker’s car on the night of his death. Minor was again caught on surveillance tape using Locker’s ATM card that same evening to take money from Locker’s bank account. Minor also took and sold Locker’s cell phone.
Minor said Locker gave him the ATM card as payment for his services.
Prosecutors contended that Locker’s knife wounds were inflicted as he lay in his car.
RELATED: KEN MINOR FOUND GUILTY IN DEATH OF LONG ISLAND MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER
“This was a murder for money, not a mercy killing,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said after Minor was convicted in 2011.
Prosecutors conceded that Locker had sought Minor’s help in committing suicide and making it look like a murder, but they said Locker’s wounds were not consistent with Minor’s account of how it happened. They insisted this was a case where Minor stabbed Locker, not that Locker effectively stabbed himself.
Jurors had to decide whether it was intentional murder or a case of assisted suicide.
The panel of appellate judges said the problem came when former Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman strayed from the standard explanation of what constitutes an assisted suicide.
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Berkman told the jury that if Minor “actively caused” Locker’s death, even with his consent, it was not an assisted suicide “because the consent of the victim is not a defense to murder.”
“By adding words not chosen by the legislature, the court effectively rewrote the statute,” the judges said in a decision released Thursday. “The error in the court’s charge … resulted in significant prejudice to defendant.”
Daniel Gotlin, who represented Minor, said he was pleased that the judges were unanimous in agreeing with him that there is no distinction in the law between active and passive assistance in a suicide.
Gotlin said the problem for the jury was that if they decided it was an assisted suicide, they would have had to acquit his client because assisted suicide is not an alternative charge to second degree murder.
Gotlin said he had urged prosecutors to let his client plead guilty to second degree manslaughter, which includes assisted suicide, but they would only charge him with murder. If Minor had been convicted of manslaughter, he would have faced a maximum of 15 years instead of the sentence he got: 20 to life.
“This was the craziest case the courthouse has ever seen. This guy had even arranged for his own funeral. I’ve never seen anything like it in 40 years of practicing law,” Gotlin said.
Vance’s office said it was reviewing the decision and also declined to comment further.
Yahoo Local News – New York Daily News
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=15009
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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