A murder case against a former state trooper for allegedly killing an 11-year-old Brooklyn girl during a chase has been reinstated by a New York State appeals court. The ruling overturns a previous dismissal made by the trial court judge supervising the case.
An Empire State grand jury indicted Christopher G. Baldner in October 2021 on a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the death of 11-year-old Monica Goods.
Six counts of first-degree reckless endangerment and one count of second-degree manslaughter were also brought against him. He didn’t get bail the following month.
Judge Bryan E. Rounds of Ulster County Court dismissed the murder allegation in February 2023, essentially upholding the lower counts against Baldner. The accusations of reckless endangerment were also reduced to second-degree offenses and were halved.
The lower court’s dismissal of the murder charge was challenged by Democratic Attorney General of New York Letitia James. On Thursday, a panel of justices in Albany granted her appeal 4-1.
The Third Judicial Department of the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division referenced strong wording from the initial indictment presented in the case in its ruling.
“The grand jury heard that, in September 2019, defendant ‘came out of the woods like the Dukes of Hazard’ in his State Police vehicle, sirens activated, when he observed a minivan speeding at 80 miles per hour,” according to the opinion. “The evidence of the December 2020 incident follows a similar pattern. The grand jury heard from witnesses that, around 11:40 p.m., defendant was ‘see[ing] if he could get one last ticket’ before meeting his partner when he stopped an SUV for speeding.”
The father of the slain girl was operating the Dodge Journey SUV. Following the traffic stop, things became worse very fast.
The court cited the girl’s father’s account and stated, “[D]efendant began the traffic stop by angrily and profanely accusing Goods of traveling over 100 miles per hour.” “Defendant and Goods got into a fight in front of Goods’ wife and two kids, who tried to console him.”
A condition of chaos and agitation descended. As per the girl’s father, he drove away out of reflex after getting doused with pepper spray. Baldner radioed dispatch that the SUV was “taking off” while using his pepper spray, rapidly pursuing the Goods family.
“During the pursuit, Baldner twice rammed his police vehicle into the rear of the Goods car,” James stated in a statement following the indictment of the accused. “Upon the second strike, the Goods car flipped over several times and came to rest upside down. The impact ejected Monica Goods from the car, and she died.”
By the time first responders got there, Monica had passed away. Her older sister was spared from the collision, but according to her family, the tragic event left her severely scarred and deprived of a childhood.
The kid was described as “a bright talented beautiful amazing giggly bubbly little girl” in a GoFundMe page set up for her family. You could not meet a more kind and kind person than Monica. She had a great deal of vitality.
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Baldner was “doing his job in a reckless and undisciplined fashion,” according to Justice J.P. Egan Jr., but his actions did not amount to “utter disregard for human life.”
Naturally, the majority disagreed, pointing out that even when Baldner applied the brakes on his service car during the pursuit, it was “to intentionally ram the SUV.” The court noted that such an act was only permitted by state police regulations in the presence of a supervisor and that Baldner’s actions were consistent with previous behavior.
On the other hand, a union group representing Baldner, the Police Benevolent Association of the New York State Troopers Inc., released a statement criticizing the court’s decision.
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