People v. McDonald
Opinion of the Court
Defendant and an accomplice entered a store, placed numerous video games in their backpacks, went past cash registers and approached the exit. In addition, defendant was equipped with tools suited to foiling store security devices. At the time the larceny was complete (see People v Olivo, 52 NY2d 309, 318 [1981]), defendant clearly intended to remove the video games from the store permanently. There was no reasonable view of the evidence that defendant only intended a temporary taking. Moreover, defendant, who pursued other lines of defense not at issue on appeal, made no such argument at trial. There was evidence that, after the taking was complete, defendant attempted to abandon the larcenous enterprise when he realized he would not be able to escape with the property. However, this had no bearing on defendant’s intent, at the time of the taking, to permanently acquire the video games.
Accordingly, there was no reasonable possibility that the lack of full definitions of deprive and appropriate had any effect on the verdict. For similar reasons, we reject defendant’s claim that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to request these instructions. Regardless of whether counsel should have made the requests, the omission could not have caused defendant any prejudice (see People v Benevento, 91 NY2d 708, 713-714 [1998]; Strickland v Washington, 466 US 668, 694 [1984]).
The court properly denied defendant’s motion to preclude his
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.