A defendant convicted of second-degree murder after disregarding his trial attorney’s advice to allow the jury charge to include the lesser offenses of first and second-degree manslaughter cannot get a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds, a Brooklyn appellate panel has ruled.
Noting Delroy Colville had opted for an “all-or-nothing strategy” after “fully consulting” with his lawyer, a unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, Second Department said it did not have to determine whether the “decision to seek the submission of lesser-included offenses to the jury is a fundamental or strategic decision.”
