Feb. 3, 2023 A judge in upstate Ulster County on Thursday tossed a murder charge against a New York state trooper accused of killing a Brooklyn girl by ramming his police cruiser at 130 mph into her family’s SUV.
By Graham Rayman Source New York Daily News (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
ULSTER COUNTY, New York — A judge in upstate Ulster County on Thursday tossed a murder charge against a New York state trooper accused of killing a Brooklyn girl by ramming his police cruiser at 130 mph into her family’s SUV.
Supreme Court Justice Bryan Rounds dismissed the top charge of second degree murder in an indictment against state Trooper Christopher Baldner for the December 2020 death of 11-year-old Monica Goods.
The judge let stand a lesser charge of manslaughter, and denied defense lawyers’ motions to dismiss the indictment entirely.
Attorney General Letitia James’ office indicated it is reviewing the decision.
Baldner’s trial was to begin March 6, but an appeal of Rounds’ ruling could push the trial back to later this year.
Baldner, who is free on bail, was accused of murdering Monica by ramming his police car twice into the rear an SUV driven by her father, Tristin Goods, who was fleeing Baldner after the trooper pepper sprayed him during a traffic stop on I-87 — the New York State Thruway — outside Kingston.
Goods said he hit the gas because he feared for his life. After the second of the two rammings by the state police vehicle, Goods’ SUV flipped over a guardrail. Monica was declared dead at the scene.
Rounds found that the evidence in the case of Monica’s death and a separate case involving another ramming incident in 2019, the evidence “rationally showed that the defendant [Baldner] ignored — and created — multiple perils that presented, at a minimum, a grave risk of physical danger.”
The judge also found that Baldner ignored state police protocols when he rammed Goods’ SUV.
But he noted that ramming a vehicle during a pursuit — known as a “pit maneuver” — was allowed by state police in extremely rare circumstances. He also noted state police grand jury testimony indicated Baldner hit the brakes between the first and second time he rammed Goods’ SUV.
“[T]he evidence rationally supports only the conclusion that this defendant [Baldner] ignored agency protocols and exercised extremely poor judgment in a foolish attempt to perform his job as a police officer as he saw it — in short, that he acted recklessly,” the judge wrote.
Under New York law, manslaughter is causing someone’s death by acting recklessly.
But Joseph O’Connor, a lawyer who represents Tristin Goods in a lawsuit against the state police and Baldner, said he disagreed entirely with Rounds’ reasoning, and said the depraved indifference Baldner displayed lines up with a second-degree murder charge.
“This is a person who directed his car at 130 miles an hour essentially at two little children and when he wasn’t successful, he did it again,” O’Connor said. “If that isn’t depraved indifference, I don’t know what is. State troopers are trained, so they know doing that could harm human life. I am astounded by the decision.”
A spokeswoman for Baldner’s union, the New York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association, said it was pleased with the result.
“We commend the judge for his decision, as it is clear the charge was not applicable to this case. We will continue to respect the legal process and provide legal representation for Trooper Baldner, a right afforded to every American citizen.”
After the deadly crash, Baldner was recorded at the scene claiming that Tristin Goods rammed his vehicle. “He f——— rammed me,” Baldner told other first responders. But that claim was contradicted by a state police investigation, which found that Baldner rammed Goods’ vehicle twice.
Monica’s family has raised other issues with the state police handling of the incident, including its decision in the hours after the crash to take Monica’s sister Tristina was taken to a state police barracks, where she was questioned without an adult present.
The state police declined to comment at the time on the interrogation. But Surrency called the questioning totally inappropriate.
An Ulster County grand jury led by James’ office indicted Baldner on eight counts — one count each of murder and manslaughter, three counts of reckless endangerment for Monica’s death, and three counts of reckless endangerment for the 2019 incident in which Baldner is accused of ramming another vehicle.
The dismissal of the murder charge does not end the case.
Sanford Rubenstein, who represents Monica’s mother Michele Surrency, said, “We await the attorney general’s decision whether to appeal. Ultimately, there will be a trial because the judge only dismissed the murder charge. The manslaughter charge remains.”