A state appellate panel has reinstated the murder charge against a state trooper who twice rammed the car of a civilian motorist, killing 11-year-old Monica Goods of Brooklyn during a high speed chase in December 2020, according to the decision released Thursday.
Four of the five judges on the appeals panel for the Third Judicial Department agreed that Judge Bryan Rounds was wrong in his February 2023 decision to dismiss the second-degree murder by depraved indifference charge against Trooper Christopher Baldner in Monica’s death.
The appeals judges also reversed Rounds’ decision to reduce first degree reckless endangerment charges against Baldner to second degree.
Monica was on a family holiday trip upstate on Dec. 22, 2020 when Baldner pulled over her father Tristan Goods for speeding on I-87 near Kingston.
The two men argued and then Baldner became enraged and peppered sprayed the interior of the car. Claiming he was in fear of his life, Goods drove off and Baldner chased twice rammed the rear of Goods’ SUV at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour.
The SUV flipped over a guardrail and Monica was ejected, killing her. Her body was found under the vehicle.
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Key to the decision was a previous 2019 incident in which Baldner rammed motorist Jonathan Muthu in another high speed chase on I-87 that ended in a crash but no deaths.
“When the evidence is viewed in the light that most favors the People – which is the finding that we must credit in this posture – is that defendant decided to end both pursuits with perilous, unsanctioned high-speed collisions while possessed of a ‘wickedness, evil or inhumanity’ directed at two defiant drivers,” the judges wrote.
“We now look forward to the trial and full justice for this horrible wrongful death which never should have happened,’ said lawyer Sanford Rubenstein who, with Corey D’Alamata, is representing Monica’s mother Michelle Surrency in a civil lawsuit against Baldner and the state.
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