United States Second Circuit

In a prosecution of multiple defendants for various drug-related offenses, their convictions are affirmed where: 1) defendants were not entitled to a jury charge on self-defense; 2) there was no error in a jury charge regarding the nexus between the drug conspiracy and the murder of a rival gang member; and 3) the evidence was sufficient to prove the existence of that nexus beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the sentence of one co-defendant is partially vacated and remanded where the district court imposed a consecutive sentence on that defendant for discharging a firearm without making the requisite finding of discharge.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/08/2008
• Published 05/08/2008

Judges

• JOHN M. WALKER, JR., Circuit Judge:, Before:  WALKER, STRAUB, and HALL, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Avraham C. Moskowitz (Joseph A. Grob, on the brief), Moskowitz & Book, New York, N.Y., for Defendant-Appellant Wilner Desinor., Bernard H. Udell, Brooklyn, N.Y., for Defendant-Appellant Jason Dent., Laura Oppenheim (Richard I. Rosenkranz, on the brief), Brooklyn, N.Y., for Defendant-Appellant Daquan Major., Emily Berger, Peter Katz, Assistant United States Attorneys, of counsel (Jo Ann M. Navickas, Assistant United States Attorney, of counsel, on the brief), for Roslynn R. Mauskopf, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, N.Y., for Appellee.