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Interesting, I do appreciate this correction and the detail.
Do you have any guess as to why the charges were reduced then? (apologies if you have address this elsewhere).
I hate to be cynical, but it honestly looks like they're trying to go easy on a retired cop. Some journalists have noted that the police haven't provided a photo of the alleged perpetrator, and that he was whisked in and out of the courthouse through the back door. Additionally, his entire online profile appears to have been scrubbed before his name was made public. A defense attorney interviewed by the New York Post suggests that it's because they couldn't prove depraved indifference, which, if firing a gun into a moving vehicle on a crowded highway doesn't count, I'm not sure what does. The recklessness argument is irrelevant anyway, since if that were the case he'd be charged with Second Degree Manslaughter, not First Degree.
The whole "extreme emotional disturbance" argument that's available in New York does offer another possibility, though it would be heavily dependent on the facts. For instance, if the guy owned a failing business and was having trouble sleeping over it and was on his way back from a meeting where the deal he thought would save the company fell through and now he has to tell his wife, who is already suggesting they get a divorce since he left his good job at the foundry to pursue a hare-brained business venture, that the bank was probably going to foreclose on their house and they'd have to pull the kids out of college, and he found himself in the parking lot of the Harrisburg Coat Outlet three hours after the shooting with no idea how he got there and no recollection of the incident, the event might qualify as an extreme emotional disturbance under New York law. The whole thing sounds to me like a "don't call it an insanity defense", and like temporary insanity defenses, it seems unlikely a jury would buy it. Unlikely enough, at least, that as a prosecutor I'd at least make them argue it as a defense at trial and wouldn't automatically reduce the charges.
Thanks for this.
It does sound like the guy was involved in a shooting and injured prior to his retirement, he probably has PTSD from that incident even if it wasn't diagnosed. Maybe they'll work that angle?
Right now they don't have to work any angle since he's only charged with manslaughter.
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