A Brooklyn appellate court has ordered a new trial for a man convicted in 2012 of murdering his landlord’s carpenter, finding that the trial judge should have instructed the jury to consider a justification defense because the man was defending himself from an attempted robbery.
Errol Irving, 65, was found guilty of second-degree murder in the February 2011 stabbing death of Shayne Sinclair, a carpenter employed by Irving’s landlord. The landlord owed Sinclair money, Irving said, and told Sinclair to collect it from Irving, according to the Appellate Division, Second Department, in People v. Irving, 1137/11.
