THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK RESPONDENT v. WILLIAM COLEMAN DEFENDANT APPELLANT (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

It is hereby ORDERED that the judgment so appealed from is unanimously reversed on the law and a new trial is granted on counts 1 through 3 and 5 through 11 of the indictment.

Memorandum: Defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him, upon a jury verdict, of two counts of murder in the second degree (Penal Law § 125.25 [1], [3]), five counts of robbery in the first degree (§ 160.15 [3], [4]), two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (§ 265.03 [3]), and one count of assault in the second degree (§ 120.05 [6]). Defendant was acquitted of the remaining count of the indictment. Defendant and his uncle (codefendant) were jointly tried following a series of armed robberies in Niagara Falls on two separate dates, during which two individuals were shot, one fatally. The evidence at trial included surveillance videos as well as cell phone records and location data for both defendants. The codefendant was convicted of the same offenses as defendant, and on the codefendant's appeal, we affirmed the judgment of conviction (People v McEnnis, 247 AD3d 1473 [4th Dept 2026]).

Defendant contends that Supreme Court erred in admitting records of a Sprint cell phone that he used at the time of the robberies because the People failed to establish a proper foundation to admit them as business records. However, defendant's general objection to the admissibility of the cell phone records was not sufficient to preserve the contention he advances on appeal (see CPL 470.05 [2]; People v Combs, 243 AD3d 1259, 1260 [4th Dept 2025], lv denied 45 NY3d 944 [2026]).

We reject defendant's contention that the conviction is not supported by legally sufficient evidence. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution (see People v Contes, 60 NY2d 620, 621 [1983]), we conclude that the evidence is legally sufficient to establish defendant's identity as an individual involved in each crime (see generally People v Bleakley, 69 NY2d 490, 495 [1987]). In addition, viewing the evidence in light of the elements of the crimes as charged to the jury (see People v Danielson, 9 NY3d 342, 349 [2007]), we conclude that the verdict is not against the weight of the evidence (see generally Bleakley, 69 NY2d at 495). Although a different verdict would not have been unreasonable, we cannot conclude that the jury “failed to give the evidence the weight it should be accorded” (id.).

Nonetheless, we agree with defendant that the court erred in denying the request for a circumstantial evidence charge (see generally People v Hardy, 26 NY3d 245, 249 [2015]). As we noted in the codefendant's appeal, “[a]lthough surveillance video footage of a crime can constitute direct evidence ․, it did not constitute direct evidence here. Defendant's identity cannot be discerned clearly from the surveillance video footage offered at trial inasmuch as the perpetrators in the videos are masked” (McEnnis, 247 AD3d at 1475; see People v Exford, 234 AD3d 1252, 1253-1254 [4th Dept 2025]).

We concluded in the codefendant's appeal that the court's failure to give the circumstantial evidence charge was harmless given that the codefendant and his vehicle could be tracked to the scenes of the offenses based upon cell phone data, license plate readers, and surveillance video (McEnnis, 247 AD3d at 1475-1476). Here, however, the evidence of defendant's involvement was substantially less. While one perpetrator on the surveillance video generally matched defendant's height and build, no witness identified him at the scene of any of the robberies. Moreover, as the People's expert acknowledged, the expert had “no location information” for defendant's phone at the times that the alleged incidents occurred. Although the evidence at trial established that defendant exchanged text messages and calls with the codefendant on the dates of the offenses and that the codefendant drove to defendant's apartment building in Niagara Falls prior to and after the offenses, the People's expert conceded that he could do little more than “speculate [as to] where [defendant] was during [those] periods of time” when the robberies were being committed. Thus, this is not “the exceptional case where the failure to give the circumstantial evidence charge was harmless error” (People v Brian, 84 NY2d 887, 889 [1994]; see People v Swem, 182 AD3d 1050, 1052 [4th Dept 2020]). “Had the trial court given the circumstantial evidence charge, alerting the jury of the need to exclude to a moral certainty every other reasonable hypothesis of innocence,” we conclude that the verdict may have been different (Exford, 234 AD3d at 1254 [internal quotation marks omitted]).

We thus conclude that the judgment must be reversed, and that defendant is entitled to a new trial on counts 1 through 3 and 5 through 11 of the indictment. In light of our determination, we do not address defendant's remaining contentions.

Entered: July 24, 2026

Ann Dillon Flynn

Clerk of the Court