THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK APPELLANT v. RYAN STENCEL DEFENDANT RESPONDENT (2026)

OPINION AND ORDER

It is hereby ORDERED that the order so appealed from is unanimously reversed on the law, the renewed motion is denied, the indictment is reinstated, and the matter is remitted to Erie County Court for further proceedings on the indictment.

Opinion by Curran, J.:

The central question raised on this appeal is whether County Court properly granted defendant's renewed motion to dismiss the indictment on the basis that the grand jury proceedings were rendered defective by the presentation of evidence later determined to be irrelevant. We answer that question in the negative and conclude that the court erred in granting the renewed motion.

I.

This case arises from a fatal motor vehicle accident that occurred on March 2, 2022, on Warner Road in the Town of Lancaster. Specifically, at around 11:30 p.m., defendant lost control of the motor vehicle he was driving, causing it to leave the roadway, rotate counterclockwise 180 degrees, travel rear end first, strike a mailbox and a tree, and burst into flames. The force with which defendant's vehicle hit the tree was such that it snapped the tree off at the root bulb and threw it about 45 feet from where it initially stood. Although defendant escaped the vehicle through its sunroof before it caught fire, the two passengers did not survive.

At the time defendant lost control of his vehicle, he was undisputedly traveling in excess of the posted speed limit of 35 miles per hour, and he lost control when the vehicle reached a snowy portion of Warner Road. The precise speed of the vehicle just before the crash could not be determined with accuracy because, among other things, the vehicle's black box was destroyed as a result of the accident. Shortly after the accident, defendant's blood was tested, and the results were positive for the presence of cannabinoids in his blood, at least some of which were found to be “active.” The results of defendant's blood test lie at the heart of this appeal.

In January 2023, the People presented their case against defendant to the grand jury. Specifically, they adduced testimony from witnesses who heard defendant's vehicle speeding down the road before the crash, saw the snowy road conditions, and observed the aftermath. One witness described the speed of defendant's vehicle as so extreme that he believed defendant was being chased by police vehicles. The People also provided testimony from an accident reconstruction expert, who opined that, before the crash, defendant's vehicle was traveling at a minimum of 67-73 miles per hour.¹ Critically, a forensic toxicologist testified that defendant's blood tested positive for cannabinoids. During the examination of a witness who testified prior to the toxicologist, the prosecutor informed a grand juror, who had asked whether defendant was “under the influence,” that “[t]here will be other witnesses.” Ultimately, the grand jury returned an indictment charging defendant with two counts of criminally negligent homicide (Penal Law § 125.10), one count for each victim.

Defendant moved for, inter alia, disclosure of the grand jury exhibits and instructions and for leave to move to dismiss the indictment once in receipt of those materials. County Court (Case, J.) denied defendant's request for disclosure of those grand jury materials and concluded, sua sponte, that the evidence was legally sufficient to support the indictment. Thereafter, on May 24, 2023, defendant expressly moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that it was defective under CPL 210.20 (1) (c) and 210.35 (5) as a consequence of the People's prejudicial presentation of irrelevant and misleading evidence. Specifically, he asserted that the testimony of the forensic toxicologist concerning the active cannabinoids misleadingly suggested, without any basis, that defendant had recently used marijuana and that his use of that substance affected his ability to operate a motor vehicle at the time of the crash. Defendant also argued that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the charges in the indictment because excessive speed alone is not enough to support criminally negligent homicide and here there was no proof of an “additional affirmative act” that transformed defendant's “ ‘speeding’ into ‘dangerous speeding’ ” (People v Cabrera, 10 NY3d 370, 377 [2008]). Even if it could be considered, the toxicologist's testimony about the active cannabinoids could not serve as an additional affirmative act because there was no proof of when defendant ingested the marijuana or that the drug actually impaired defendant's physical and mental abilities. The court denied defendant's motion on the grounds that the grand jury proceedings were not defective and the evidence before the grand jury was sufficient because it showed that “defendant drove a vehicle in excess of twice the posted speed limit at night, under poor road conditions, with some amount of cannabinoids in his blood.”

Thereafter, in his omnibus motion, defendant, among other things, challenged the admissibility of the blood tests that formed the basis of the forensic toxicologist's testimony on the grounds that they were irrelevant and not scientifically reliable for purposes of showing the recency of defendant's purported marijuana use and whether his physical and mental abilities were actually impaired by the drug at the time in question. The court ultimately agreed to preclude that evidence, ruling that, “unless the People [have] a toxicologist who could positively state that the [cannabinoids] in [defendant's] blood would have had some effect on his ability to operate a motor vehicle,” that evidence was irrelevant and “highly prejudicial.”

Six months later, in July 2024, defendant moved for, inter alia, leave to renew his prior motion to dismiss the indictment, citing CPL 255.20 (3) and CPLR 2221. By that time, the underlying matter had been transferred to a different judge (Phillips, A.J.). Once again, defendant requested that the court dismiss the indictment as defective on the theory that the People improperly presented irrelevant and misleading cannabinoid evidence to the grand jury through the toxicologist's testimony, which prejudiced defendant. According to defendant, renewal was appropriate given new developments in the case since the time of the original motion. The People opposed renewal on the basis that the motion was untimely and, regardless, renewal under the CPLR was not permitted in criminal proceedings. On the merits, the People opposed dismissal of the indictment as defective, arguing that the cannabinoid evidence was not irrelevant. Even without the disputed evidence, they contended, the remaining evidence before the grand jury was legally sufficient to support the charges in the indictment. The court granted leave to renew and dismissed the indictment, concluding that defendant's motion was timely because it was responsive to recently disclosed allegations of fact. On the merits, the court concluded that the grand jury proceedings were defective as a result of the People's introduction of “prejudicial and flawed evidence”—i.e., the cannabinoid evidence. The court concluded that the toxicologist's testimony about the cannabinoids, coupled with the prosecutor's response that there would be “other witnesses,” to a grand juror's query about whether defendant was “under the influence” at the time of the accident, caused the “grand jurors to reasonably infer that [d]efendant had consumed marijuana within a relevant time period prior to the accident, and that the ․ cannabinoids affected his operation of the automobile.” The court concluded that the introduction of that evidence before the grand jury “was prosecutorial error and highly prejudicial” in light of what the court termed the People's concession “that they had no witnesses who could testify as to the relevance of the marijuana blood evidence with regard to [d]efendant's ability to operate” the vehicle. In other words, the court concluded that the People had committed error in introducing the cannabinoid evidence in light of their “subsequent[ ] conce[ssion that it] ha[d] no nexus to [d]efendant's negligent operation of a motor vehicle.”

The court further concluded that, because the cannabinoid evidence was critical to the People's grand jury presentation, without it there was legally insufficient evidence to support the charges of criminally negligent homicide. The remaining evidence—even viewed in the light most favorable to the People—established only that defendant was traveling over the speed limit in poor road conditions. Those facts, alone, did not establish that defendant was engaged in any additional affirmative act that would transform defendant's excessive speeding into the “ ‘dangerous speeding’ ” necessary to show that he created a “ ‘substantial and unjustifiable risk of death’ ” to support charges of criminally negligent homicide. Consequently, the court dismissed the indictment. The People appeal (see CPL 450.20 [1]).

II.

Initially, the People contend that the court erred in granting leave to renew on the ground that defendant did not offer any justification for his failure to offer certain evidence in support of his original motion to dismiss the indictment. To the extent that the People assert that renewal under CPLR 2221 was inappropriate in a criminal case (see generally People v Lamont, 144 AD3d 1330, 1331 [3d Dept 2016], lv denied 28 NY3d 1185 [2017]; People v Silva, 122 AD2d 750, 750 [1st Dept 1986]), we note that the court did not expressly address that issue in the order and therefore we are precluded from reviewing that issue on appeal therefrom (see CPL 470.15 [1]; see generally People v Concepcion, 17 NY3d 192, 195-196 [2011]; People v LaFontaine, 92 NY2d 470, 474 [1998], rearg denied 93 NY2d 849 [1999]). We also note that, on appeal, the People have abandoned any contention that defendant's renewal motion was untimely by failing to raise that argument on appeal (see People v Currington, 219 AD3d 1701, 1702 [4th Dept 2023]; People v Cardoza, 218 AD3d 1291, 1295 [4th Dept 2023], lv denied 40 NY3d 996 [2023]; People v Wilson, 213 AD3d 1217, 1218 [4th Dept 2023], lv denied 39 NY3d 1158 [2023]). In light of the foregoing, we conclude that there is no procedural basis for reversal. Thus, we must proceed to the substance of the underlying motion.

III.

On the merits, the People assert that the court erred in dismissing the indictment inasmuch as the grand jury proceedings were not rendered defective through prosecutorial misconduct. We agree.

A.

An indictment may be dismissed due to defective grand jury proceedings where, as relevant here, the proceeding “fails to conform to the requirements of [CPL article 190] to such degree that the integrity thereof is impaired and prejudice to the defendant may result” (CPL 210.35 [5]; see CPL 210.20 [1] [c]). It is well settled that the exclusive “legal advisors of the grand jury are the court and the district attorney” (CPL 190.25 [6]). In particular, the prosecutor enjoys “broad powers and duties, as well as wide discretion in presenting the People's case” to the grand jury (People v Huston, 88 NY2d 400, 406 [1996]; see People v Lancaster, 69 NY2d 20, 25-26 [1986], cert denied 480 US 922 [1987]). Indeed, it is the prosecutor who “determines the competency of witnesses to testify” and “must instruct the [grand] jury on the legal significance of the evidence” (People v Di Falco, 44 NY2d 482, 487 [1978]; see Huston, 88 NY2d at 406).

Nevertheless, it is equally well settled that due process imposes upon the prosecutor a “duty of fair dealing to the accused and candor to the courts,” thereby requiring the prosecutor “not only to seek convictions but also to see that justice is done” (People v Pelchat, 62 NY2d 97, 105 [1984]; see Huston, 88 NY2d at 406). That duty extends to the prosecutor's involvement in the grand jury process (see Lancaster, 69 NY2d at 26). For example, a prosecutor may not provide “an inaccurate and misleading answer to the grand jury's legitimate inquiry” (People v Hill, 5 NY3d 772, 773 [2005]), nor may the prosecutor accept an indictment that they know to be based on false, misleading, or legally insufficient evidence (see Pelchat, 62 NY2d at 107).

Of particular relevance here, “[t]he exceptional remedy of dismissal” for defective grand jury proceedings is available in “rare cases” of prosecutorial misconduct upon a showing that, in the absence of the complained-of actions of the prosecutor, the grand jury might have decided not to indict defendant (Huston, 88 NY2d at 409-410). That demanding test is met only when “the prosecutor engages in an ‘over-all pattern of bias and misconduct’ that is ‘pervasive’ and typically willful” (People v Thompson, 22 NY3d 687, 699 [2014], rearg denied 23 NY3d 948 [2014], quoting Huston, 88 NY2d at 408). In contrast, “isolated instances of misconduct, including the erroneous handling of evidentiary matters, do not merit [dismissal] of the indictment” (id. at 699 [emphasis added]; see Huston, 88 NY2d at 408, 409-410; Pelchat, 62 NY2d at 106-107). In other words, “the statutory test [for determining whether a grand jury proceeding was rendered defective due to prosecutorial misconduct], which does not turn on mere flaw, error or skewing ․ is very precise and very high” (People v Darby, 75 NY2d 449, 455 [1990]).

B.

In applying the foregoing principles, we conclude that the court erred in granting defendant's renewed motion on the ground that the grand jury proceedings were rendered defective due to prosecutorial misconduct. At the outset, it is worth noting what is not at issue here. Specifically, we note that there is no evidence in this case that the People, in introducing the cannabinoid evidence to the grand jury, intentionally engaged “in an over-all pattern of bias and misconduct” that was “pervasive” and “willful” (Thompson, 22 NY3d at 699 [internal quotation marks omitted]). There also is no evidence that, in introducing the challenged evidence, the prosecutor was “motivated by bias or a desire to deceive the grand jury” (id. at 706) or that there was any “nefarious design to deliberately cause unfairness to defendant” (People v Wisdom, 23 NY3d 970, 973 [2014]).

Rather, the court's conclusion that the People had impaired the integrity of the grand jury proceedings through misconduct was predicated on its determination that the People had improperly introduced the cannabinoid evidence—evidence that was later found to be irrelevant. In so concluding, the court failed to explain how the People's reliance on the allegedly flawed cannabinoid evidence met the dismissal standard set forth by the Court of Appeals in the aforementioned cases. Indeed, it is quite clear from those decisions that a mere error or flaw by a prosecutor in presenting evidence does not, in fact, meet the demanding test for establishing entitlement to dismissal due to the impairment of the integrity of the grand jury proceedings (see generally Thompson, 22 NY3d at 699; Huston, 88 NY2d at 408-410; Darby, 75 NY2d at 455).

At bottom, the court's conclusion that the prosecutor impaired the integrity of the grand jury proceedings by introducing the cannabinoid evidence is based on the view that said evidence was irrelevant—as the court later determined in precluding its ultimate use at trial. Of course, at the time that the challenged evidence was presented to the grand jury, the court had not ruled on its admissibility. Further, there is nothing in the record to suggest that the People knew that the cannabinoid evidence was irrelevant at the time that they presented it to the grand jury. Indeed, if we were to affirm here, we would effectively be endorsing the view that whenever evidence is presented to the grand jury that is later found—even as a matter of discretion—to be irrelevant and unduly prejudicial, a defendant may always seek and obtain dismissal of the indictment as defective to the extent that the defendant can connect the precluded evidence to evidence before the grand jury. Such an approach runs completely contrary to the repeated insistence of the Court of Appeals that dismissal of an indictment as defective is an exceptional remedy (see e.g. Wisdom, 23 NY3d at 973; Thompson, 22 NY3d at 699; Huston, 88 NY2d at 409; Darby, 75 NY2d at 455).

The decision of the Court of Appeals in People v Darby (75 NY2d 449) is especially illuminating. There, the defendant contended that the grand jury proceedings were impaired when the prosecutor failed to instruct the grand jurors that a statement the defendant gave may have been coerced (an argument that the defendant himself made in his testimony to the grand jury and subsequently at the suppression hearing) (id. at 454-455). The defendant alleged that, as a result, the proceedings were rendered defective because the prosecutor failed to instruct the grand jury that the defendant's statement was potentially inadmissible. Ultimately, however, the defendant's statement was found voluntary and was admitted in evidence at trial. On appeal, the Court held that dismissal of the indictment was not required, even without addressing the issue of prejudice, inasmuch as that remedy “would invert retrospectively the well-established and well-founded instructional requirements for [g]rand [j]uries and would supplant the unquestionably high prong of ‘impairment of integrity’ of the [g]rand [j]ury process” (id. at 455). Thus, in analyzing CPL 210.35 (5), the Court in Darby set forth two prongs of the analysis whether dismissal is warranted under that statute: (1) “the very high hurdle of [demonstrating] impairment of the integrity of the [g]rand [j]ury process” and (2) potential prejudice to the defendant (75 NY2d at 455).

Based on the foregoing, we note that it is necessary to sharply differentiate between the alleged impairment of the integrity of the grand jury proceedings and whether that impairment may result in prejudice to a defendant. That is to say, impairment does not necessarily hinge upon prejudice but is a separate consideration entirely. Of course, once evidence is received before the grand jury, it is almost always prejudicial to the defendant, at least to some extent. If a court melds together the two prongs set forth in Darby, the prejudice prong will almost always overpower the impairment prong. Indeed, such a melding is precisely what the court did here in dismissing the indictment, as evidenced by its express conclusion that “the People introduced prejudicial and flawed evidence” (emphasis added). In other words, the court failed to analyze—separately from prejudice—defendant's basis for contending that the integrity of the grand jury proceeding was impaired and failed to apply the “high test” (Darby, 75 NY2d at 455) to determine whether this is one of the rare cases where the exceptional remedy of dismissal is warranted.

That the People introduced evidence to the grand jury that was subsequently found to be irrelevant did not automatically render the grand jury proceedings defective or the indictment unsupported by legally sufficient evidence. There is clear authority supporting the proposition that evidence later deemed inadmissible may still support an indictment provided that it was not inherently incompetent or barred by a per se exclusionary rule (see People v Suber, 19 NY3d 247, 251-252 [2012]; People v Gordon, 88 NY2d 92, 95-96 [1996]; People v Swamp, 84 NY2d 725, 731-732 [1995]). Indeed, “[e]vidence deemed inadmissible at trial after extrinsic proof reveals some infirmity may nevertheless have supported a prima facie case [before the g]rand [j]ury” (Swamp, 84 NY2d at 732; see People v Oakley, 28 NY2d 309, 312-313 [1971]). Consequently, courts have drawn “a distinction between evidence subject to a per se exclusionary rule that is never sufficient to support an indictment and evidence that is sufficient to support a prima facie case before the [g]rand [j]ury but is later proven unreliable” (Gordon, 88 NY2d at 96).

Here, after the indictment was filed but before trial, the court concluded that the cannabinoid evidence was to be precluded at trial because it was irrelevant and highly prejudicial. That does not, however, imply that the challenged evidence was inherently incompetent or inadmissible under any circumstances (see Swamp, 84 NY2d at 731-732). Notably, defendant never contended, and the court never found, that the cannabinoid evidence presented to the grand jury through the toxicologist's testimony was not “competent evidence,” the standard by which the legal sufficiency of evidence is judged (CPL 70.10 [1]), in a process that defers to a later time “all questions as to the quantity or weight of the proof” (People v Sabella, 35 NY2d 158, 167 [1974], rearg denied 35 NY2d 855 [1974]).

Notably, at the time the People presented the cannabinoid evidence to the grand jury, there was no discretionary ruling about its admissibility that would caution the People against relying on it to secure the indictment. That there was no error in relying on that evidence is further strengthened by the fact that the court—albeit a different judge—twice found the evidence before the grand jury legally sufficient before a newly assigned judge subsequently determined that

the integrity of the grand jury proceedings was impaired. Thus, inasmuch as the court had not yet precluded the evidence on relevancy grounds when the People provided it to the grand jury, we conclude that the evidence was, at that time, competent, and therefore the People did not impair the integrity of the grand jury proceedings via its introduction.

IV.

Accordingly, the order should be reversed, the renewed motion denied, and the indictment reinstated, and the matter should be remitted to County Court for further proceedings on the indictment.

Entered: July 24, 2026

Ann Dillon Flynn

Clerk of the Court

FOOTNOTES

1.   Subsequently, in response to an expert affidavit submitted by defendant 18 months after the indictment, the People issued a revised accident reconstruction report, which altered its estimate about the speed of defendant's vehicle at the time of the accident. According to the revised report, defendant's vehicle was traveling at a minimum of 53-56 miles per hour at the time of the crash. That was still in contrast to the expert opinion offered by defendant, which stated that the vehicle was traveling at 36-47 miles per hour at the time of the accident. Defendant sought to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the People's evidence of speeding also impaired the grand jury proceedings, and the court agreed with defendant's position in the order dismissing the indictment. On appeal, however, the parties have focused on whether the court properly dismissed the indictment due to prosecutorial error in connection with the toxicologist's testimony about the active cannabinoids—we do not see defendant as arguing that the prosecutor's reliance on the original accident reconstruction report establishes an independent basis to affirm the order on appeal. Thus, we do not address that contention except to note that the People's reliance on the original accident construction report before the grand jury was not prosecutorial error. Regardless, any variance between the estimated speed of defendant's vehicle as contained in the two accident reconstruction reports is immaterial given that, pursuant to either report, defendant was traveling considerably in excess of the speed limit.