People v. Ivy

Shooting outside apartment building left one person dead and three injured. Defendant was one of at least three shooters present. After bench trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder of one person and attempted murder of three persons, and sentenced to combined 120 years. No evidence at trial proved that one injured person was shot by someone acting in furtherance of common criminal design shared by Defendant and other shooters at scene. Thus, Defendant's conviction of attempted murder of that one person, based on accountability theory, is reversed. Although two witnesses, who had identified Defendant, to police and to grand jury, as the man who shot the one person who died, recanted at trial, trial court was better-positioned to assess credibility of those statements versus their prior statements. Defendant's murder conviction affirmed.(FITZGERALD SMITH and COBBS, concurring.)