New York University Review of Law and Social Change
1990/1991
Challenging the Death Penalty: A Colloquium
Part Two
INEVITABLE ERROR: WRONGFUL NEW YORK STATE HOMICIDE CONVICTIONS, 1965-1988
by Marty I. Rosenbaum

Excerpt

Georgino Borrero, a store security guard, was convicted of criminally negligent homicide in Bronx County on July 6, 1983, in the shooting death of John Johnson. On appeal in 1986, the Appellate Division found that, after Johnson pulled a gun on him, Borrero had left the store to find a police officer and fired only when Johnson advanced toward him with a gun and assumed a “combat stance.”1 The court found that Borrero had “acted entirely reasonably.... [His] conduct was that of a responsible citizen.”2 His conviction was reversed and the indictment dismissed.3

Footnotes

1. People v. Borrero, 118 A.D.2d 345, 347, 504 N.Y.S.2d 654, 657 (1st Dep’t 1986).
 
2. Id. at 351, 504 N.Y.S.2d at 658.
 
3. Id. at 352, 504 N.Y.S.2d at 654.