{"id":698,"date":"2012-04-19T14:40:18","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/?p=698"},"modified":"2012-05-05T15:36:51","modified_gmt":"2012-05-05T19:36:51","slug":"people-v-marrero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/people-v-marrero\/","title":{"rendered":"People v. Marrero, 69 N.Y. 2d 382"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Case Name: <\/strong>People v. Marrero<br \/>\n<strong>Citation: <\/strong>69 N.Y. 2d 382<\/p>\n<p><strong>Facts: <\/strong>Marrero, a federal corrections officer, was arrested for unlicensed possession of a loaded handgun. The statute exempted \u201cpeace officers\u201d which included \u201ccorrections officers of any state correctional facility or of <em>any<\/em> penal correctional institution.\u201d After a successful pretrial motion to dismiss, the Appellate Division reinstated the indictment, holding that Marrero was not a \u201cpeace officer.\u201d Marrero was then tried and convicted before a jury after the trial court rejected his request for a jury instruction that it would be a good defense if he reasonably believed that the statutory exemption for peace officers applied to him as a federal correctional officer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Issue:<\/strong> Whether the defendant\u2019s personal misreading or misunderstanding of a statute may excuse criminal conduct in the circumstances of this case.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Defendant\u2019s argument: \u00a0<\/strong>The jury should have received an instruction about his reasonable belief that the statutory exemption applied to him was a good defense.<\/p>\n<p><strong>State\u2019s argument:<\/strong> The common law has clearly established that \u201c<a title=\"Mistake of Law Defense\" href=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/mistake-of-law\/\">mistake of law<\/a>\u201d does not relieve a defendant of criminal liability.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Holding: <\/strong>Conviction upheld.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reasoning: <\/strong>In addition to the common law view, if Marrero&#8217;s argument was accepted, \u201cthe exception would swallow the rule. Mistakes about the law would be encouraged\u2026there would be an infinite number of mistake of law defenses.\u201d The crime only required general intent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dissent: <\/strong>The majority adopts an<strong> <\/strong>Utilitarian view. The criminal justice system is supposed to punish blameworthiness or \u201cchoosing freely to do wrong.\u201d The defendant acted innocently and with any intent to do wrong and should not be punished. Furthermore, the dissent disagreed with the majority\u2019s construction of the penal statute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Case Name: People v. Marrero Citation: 69 N.Y. 2d 382 Facts: Marrero, a federal corrections officer, was arrested for unlicensed possession of a loaded handgun. The statute exempted \u201cpeace officers\u201d which included \u201ccorrections officers of any state correctional facility or of any penal correctional institution.\u201d After a successful pretrial motion to dismiss, the Appellate Division &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/people-v-marrero\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;People v. Marrero, 69 N.Y. 2d 382&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[146,145],"tags":[164,163],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>People v. 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