By Michele Evans / NYweeklyRecord.com / Date: 7/28/2026
Category: Criminal Courts / Appeals / Self-Defense / New York State
NEW YORK CITY, NY –
A New York appeals court has vacated a manslaughter conviction after concluding that prosecutors failed to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt in a chaotic shootout that left the driver of a vehicle dead.
The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, unanimously reversed the manslaughter portion of the judgment against Charles Major. The court found the verdict was against the weight of the evidence when the proof was measured against New York’s justification defense. Two convictions for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon remain in place.
The case grew out of an exchange of gunfire between people inside a vehicle and at least two unidentified assailants outside it. Major and two codefendants were inside the car. The driver was killed by a shot that prosecutors alleged Major fired from within the vehicle.
But the evidence also established that the danger came from outside. Major told police that the unidentified assailants began shooting at the occupants before anyone inside returned fire. A witness testified that she saw one of the outside assailants pull a gun from his pocket, followed by the sound and sight of gunfire. Multiple rounds struck the vehicle from the outside.
That evidence went directly to justification. Under New York law, a person may use deadly physical force when they reasonably believe another person is using or is about to use deadly physical force. The threat does not begin only after a bullet is fired. An imminent gun threat can qualify as deadly force.
The prosecution also had to address retreat. When the duty to retreat applies, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant could have retreated with complete personal safety and knew that safe retreat was available.
The Fourth Department found that burden was not met. Major was a passenger, not the driver. He was inside a vehicle being hit by gunfire from outside. The prosecution did not prove that he could have escaped the attack with complete personal safety before firing, or that he knew such an escape was possible.
That conclusion did not erase every part of the case. After the occupants fled the car, Major fired toward a fleeing codefendant, believing the person was one of the outside assailants. The court found that conduct supported the weapon-possession convictions. Even if Major initially obtained the gun under excusable circumstances, the court concluded that firing toward someone who was running away was reckless, dangerous, and unlawful.
That distinction is central to the ruling. The court did not say every use of the weapon was justified. It separated the gunfire used during the immediate attack on the vehicle from the later shooting toward a fleeing person. The manslaughter conviction failed because the state did not disprove justification for the response to the outside gunfire. The weapon convictions survived because the later conduct defeated Major’s claim of temporary and lawful possession.
The procedural route matters too. Major’s legal-sufficiency challenge to the manslaughter count had been waived because he consented to the prosecution’s request to charge second-degree manslaughter as a lesser included offense of second-degree murder. The appellate court nevertheless reviewed all the trial evidence under its weight-of-the-evidence authority and concluded the manslaughter verdict could not stand.
The court also rejected Major’s suppression and right-to-counsel arguments. Police questioned him at a hospital after a friend brought him there for treatment of a gunshot wound. The court found he was not in custody at the hospital because he was there voluntarily, was not restrained, and was not told he could not leave.
Statements made later at the police precinct also remained admissible. The panel found Major’s questions and comments about “the lawyer stuff” did not amount to an unequivocal request for counsel. His sweatshirt and jacket were lawfully seized at the hospital under the plain-view doctrine because police knew his arm had been shot and the clothing would have covered the entry and exit wounds.
The outcome is a partial reversal, not a full exoneration. Major remains convicted on two weapon counts, and the appellate court left the rest of the judgment intact. It did not order a new trial on the manslaughter charge. It reversed that conviction on the facts after finding the prosecution had not carried its burden on justification.
The decision is also a warning about how self-defense cases must be evaluated. A person inside a car under fire cannot be treated as though a clear, safe exit necessarily existed. Prosecutors must prove more than the possibility of retreat. They must prove complete personal safety and the defendant’s knowledge that retreat could be accomplished.
A death occurred, and the driver’s loss remains at the center of the case. But criminal liability still depends on proof beyond a reasonable doubt. When the state cannot disprove justification under the circumstances the jury heard, a manslaughter verdict cannot survive simply because the outcome was tragic.
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