Murder will out . . .

What hath my son-in-law wrought?

Appeals ruling casts shadow on murder convictions

<:> In an Article by Jonathan Bandler, in today’s The Journal News, an analysis of the ominous consequences of the Payne ruling is made. It suggests that the current law relating to this subject needs to undergo intensive scrutiny, especially as to its constitutionality.

You will recall that this Blog recently carried three separate Posts about this case. The Payne appeal, made before the NY State Court of Appeals was successfully pled by my son-in-law Robert Bruce Kenney, Attorney

Journal quote: "Last month, Kenneth Payne walked out of an upstate prison a free man after his 2000 murder conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. Payne had been convicted of committing the first slaying in Shelter Island’s 350-year history. He was accused of firing a shotgun blast into the stomach of his neighbor in 1998. The jury acquitted him of intentional murder but found him guilty of depraved-indifference murder. The Court ruled that Payne had clearly intended to kill but that the point-blank shooting did not meet the legal standard of depravity and the jury should never have been allowed to consider both second-degree murder charges"

<:> Perhaps many of the murderers presently incarcerated in NY State prisons, who were convicted of depraved indifference to human life, should have been convicted of intentional murder. In nearly all of those cases, appeals to reverse their convictions will now surely be made. And if, as in the precedent establishing Payne case these appeals succeed -- each of those murderers will be uncaged, unfettered and set free.

Clearly, where Kenney steps, he does not tread lightly.

He has stirred up some dust in N.Y. State’s judicial system!