People v Coleman

Holding The judgment of conviction is reversed and a new trial granted because the trial court erred in denying a request for a circumstantial evidence charge. The error was not harmless because the evidence of the defendant’s involvement was substantially less direct than in the codefendant’s case, relying on masked surveillance footage and speculative expert testimony regarding location.

The court’s words

Defendant's identity cannot be discerned clearly from the surveillance video footage offered at trial inasmuch as the perpetrators in the videos are masked

2026 NY Slip Op 04629, at the official text

the expert had "no location information" for defendant's phone at the times that the alleged incidents occurred

2026 NY Slip Op 04629, at the official text

the expert conceded that he could do little more than "speculate [as to] where [defendant] was during [those] periods of time"

2026 NY Slip Op 04629, at the official text

alerting the jury of the need to exclude to a moral certainty every other reasonable hypothesis of innocence

2026 NY Slip Op 04629, at the official text