The People of the State of New York v. Guillermo Coronado, Defendant. (2024)

Defendant Guillermo Coronado is charged with murder in the second degree based on an incident that occurred on the night of Halloween 2013 when Anthony Seaberry was shot and killed by a masked man in Brooklyn. Surveillance video captured images of the shooting and a shooter who, according to the People, was wearing a so-called Scream mask (from the horror film franchise). A Scream mask was recovered in the vicinity of the crime scene. It was swabbed for DNA and sent to the OCME for testing. On April 28, 2014, the OCME issued a report stating that the DNA sample from the recovered mask matched the DNA of defendant, who was, at the time of the homicide, 18 years old.

Almost three years after the shooting, on September 22, 2016, Coronado was arrested in a park in Queens and charged with the possession of a firearm. The next day he was charged with the possession of a second firearm found in the dresser of his residence, also in Queens.

Shortly after these arrests, on September 23, 2016, the police interrogated Coronado with respect to the Seaberry homicide. Although he maintained his innocence, he admitted having been present at the shooting and having worn a mask. He was not arrested at the time. To the court's knowledge, neither of the guns he was accused of possessing was linked ballistically to the homicide.

After posting a bond in connection with the Queens indictment and making several appearances in that case, Coronado ultimately pled guilty on September 24, 2018, to the charge of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. He was sentenced on November 27, 2018, to a term of three and a half years of prison and two and a half years of post-release supervision. He was paroled on November 4, 2021, only to be arrested on the 2013 murder charge on September 27, 2022. He was then 27 years old. Nearly nine years had passed since the homicide, eight and a half since the DNA hit, and more than six since the interrogation.

Other than the 2014 identification of defendant's DNA on the Scream mask and his 2016 interrogation, no additional evidence connected Coronado to the Seaberry homicide except for statements by two individuals, made in January 2016 and January 2017, respectively, identifying him as the shooter of Seaberry. The District Attorney entered into a cooperation agreement with one of these individuals in 2019. That agreement was later terminated. Neither witness was proffered to a grand jury when Coronado was indicted on September 20, 2022.

Coronado now moves to dismiss the indictment due to prosecutorial delay in bringing these charges, claiming that the delay deprives him of his due process right to a speedy trial under the New York State Constitution and CPL § 30.20. I conclude that because this prosecution was unreasonably delayed, the charges against defendant must be dismissed.

A defendant's right to a speedy trial has long been protected. The Sixth Amendment seeks to ensure that defendants are not incarcerated indefinitely and that they are tried when evidence is likely to be fresh and witness memories sharp. "Excessive delay presumptively compromises the reliability of a trial in ways neither party can prove or, for that matter, identify" (Doggett v United States, 505 US 647, 655 [1992]).

In New York, the right to a speedy trial is broader than the Sixth Amendment's protection, and our speedy trial statute has been interpreted as extending to unduly delayed indictments (see People v Singer, 44 NY2d 241, 253 [1978]). Thus, an unjustified delay in prosecution may rise to a due process violation that must be remedied by dismissal (see People v Taranovich, 37 NY2d 442, 445 [1975]).

The so-called Taranovich factors that a court must consider when an unconstitutional delay in prosecution is alleged are: 1) the extent of the delay; 2) the reason for the delay; 3) the nature of the underlying charge; 4) whether there has been an extended period of pre-trial incarceration; and 5) whether there is an indication that the defense has been impaired. When deciding the merits of a defendant's claim, "no one factor or combination of the factors is necessarily decisive or determinative of the [prompt prosecution claim] but rather the particular case must be considered in light of all the factors as they apply to it" (People v Wiggins, 31 NY3d 1, 10 [2018] [citation omitted]).

With respect to the first Taranovich factor, the extent of the delay, it is apparent that the People's delay was truly extended. Even an unexcused four years has been found to be too long (see People v Regan, 39 NY3d 459 [2023]). Here we have eight and a half years from the identification of defendant's DNA on the Scream mask supposedly worn by the shooter, six years since defendant's admission to being present at the scene of the shooting wearing a mask, and more than five years since a purported witness came forward identifying him. This delay clearly favors defendant's contention on his motion.

Next, the court must consider the reasons for the People's delay. Legitimate excuses for delay may include time spent building a case involving child victims (see People v Cuadrado, 227 AD3d 1174 [3d Dept 2024]); gathering additional evidence and forensic testing (see People v Wald, 215 AD3d 497 [1st Dept 2023]; see also People v Stefanovich, 207 AD3d 1047 [4th Dept 2022]); utilizing new technologies (see People v Decker, 13 NY3d 12, 13-15 [2009]); overcoming a suspect's efforts to prevent prosecution by leaving the country, using different names and suborning witness perjury (see People v Rivera, 226 AD3d 929, 931 [2d Dept 2024]); and exhausting all possible leads (People v Grant, 82 Misc 3d 991 [Sup Ct Kings Co 2024] [Del Giudice, J.] [but dismissing because of the subsequent unreasonable delay that occurred after defendant's DNA profile became available for comparison to evidence in the case and went untested]).

These reasons have been found to satisfy the People's burden "to establish good cause" (Singer, 44 NY2d at 253). The COVID-19 pandemic, which the People cite as having delayed the convening of grand juries, is too little an excuse (see People v Jones, 80 Misc 3d 467 [Sup Ct Kings Co 2023] [Del Giudice, J.]), and certainly too late for a case that could have been prosecuted in 2014, 2016 or 2017, years before the pandemic.

The People rely as well on their ultimately unsuccessful efforts to secure the cooperation of a witness. That too is too little too late. As the Court of Appeals explained in Wiggins, supra, seeking the cooperation of a witness may excuse a delay if the efforts to secure cooperation are reasonable. Here, an approximately two-year effort to secure an individual's cooperation was not reasonable simply because it took so long. After it failed, defendant still was not indicted for another three years, suggesting that the witness's cooperation was not in fact the cause of the delay in prosecution. Perhaps more importantly, cooperation of a co-defendant, as in Wiggins, is a far different matter than cooperation of an alleged non-participant in the crime, as is the case here. The witness could simply have been subpoenaed to testify. (If not, the People have not explained why.)

It is true that courts have sustained prosecutions where, for example, a newly elected District Attorney reevaluated evidence already long in law enforcement's possession (see, e.g., People v Denis, 276 AD2d 237 [3d Dept 2000]). But the People in this case have not offered such a reevaluation as their excuse. This case, therefore, is closer to Regan, supra, where the Court of Appeals evaluated whether the People offered an explanation for discrete time periods at issue and found that they gave no account for much of the time that had passed fruitlessly (see Regan, 39 NY3d at 463). Here, the People fail to explain why defendant was not arrested after the DNA hit (2014) or after his admission to being present at the scene (2016) or after they received information from an alleged witness (2017).

Thus, I find that the reasons the People offer for their delay do not favor them.

Next, the charge here, murder, is our most serious crime, a class A felony. This factor thus favors the People.

The fourth Taranovich factor is pre-trial incarceration. Defendant was incarcerated for some time between his 2016 interrogation and his 2022 indictment. Although he was not incarcerated on this case, his incarceration is not a factor that favors the People. They could have indicted him while he was imprisoned rather than after his release. Indicting him when they did had the effect of extending his confinement on an unproven charge, inasmuch as he was returned to jail shortly after his release from prison because of the new indictment. Singer specifically addresses and disapproves of this practice (see Singer, 44 NY2d at 254-55). This factor therefore favors defendant.

Last, I must consider whether the delay caused the defense prejudice. Although defendant's attorney claims prejudice because of the passage of time, I note that defendant was alerted back in 2016 that he was a suspect in this investigation, allowing him to attempt to preserve evidence when the matter was fresher than it was in 2022. Of course, his ability to do so was limited both by his incarceration, which followed shortly after the interrogation, and by the lack of a contemporaneous arrest in this matter, which would have permitted an attorney to engage in a full investigation of the facts. I therefore find that this factor favors the defendant.

As the Court of Appeals stated in Wiggins, "The failure of our criminal justice system to promptly resolve cases erodes faith in its fundamental fairness. Th[e Court of Appeals] has long recognized that society, as well as the defendant, has an important interest in assuring prompt prosecution of those suspected of criminal activity" (Wiggins, 31 NY3d at 6).

For the foregoing reasons, I conclude that the People inexcusably delayed this prosecution and that therefore the charges against defendant must be dismissed.

This constitutes the decision of the court in support of an order issued on June 24, 2024.

Dated:July 11, 2024

Brooklyn, NY

JOHN T. HECHT, A.J.S.C.

John T. Hecht, J.