New York State’s highest court ruled on Tuesday that a state anti-terrorism statute cannot be used to prosecute street gangs – a ruling on the first case of its kind, with likely implications for future terrorism cases across the county.

In a unanimous decision in the case People v. Edgar Morales, the New York State Court of Appeals overturned gang member Edgar Morales’s conviction on state terrorism charges.  The court ordered a new trial for Morales, who had been sentenced to up to life in prison.

The case stemmed from a 2002 shooting at a Bronx church that killed a 10-year-old girl, Malenny Mendez, and paralyzed another person.  Morales, a member of the Bronx-based gang, St. James Boys, was involved in the shooting, but at the time was charged only with evidence tampering and trespassing.  He was acquitted of tampering and pleaded guilty to trespassing.

In 2004, the Bronx District Attorney’s office represented the case to a grand jury, this time under the theory that Morales had fired the stray bullet that killed Mendez.  In representing the case to the jury, which indicted Morales, the prosecutors applied a state terrorism statute passed six days after the September 11, 2001 attacks – an unusual move, given that it was the first such application of the statute, and most terrorism cases are prosecuted in federal, not state, court.

The statute that the prosecutors applied, Penal Law §490.25, defines a “crime of terrorism” as one committed with “intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy  of  a unit of government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a  unit  of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping.”  The prosecutors applied this statute to the case on the grounds that Morales’s gang was engaged in intimidating a particular “civilian population”: the Mexican-Americans who lived in the vicinity of the gang’s base.

The prosecutors charged Morales under the terrorism statute with manslaughter, attempted murder, and weapon possession.  He was also charged with conspiracy.  During the trial, Morales’s attorney, Catherine Amirfar, moved to dismiss the terrorism charges, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to support them, but the motion was denied.  Morales was convicted of all charges and sentenced to 40 years to life.  The first three crimes under the conviction were considered acts of terrorism, which carry harsher penalties.

In 2010, in a partial victory for Morales, the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division – First Department found that Morales had engaged only in gang-related street crimes, and the court vacated the terrorism convictions.  The court did, however, uphold other parts of the sentence, rejecting Amirfar’s contention that the terror charges allowed the prosecutors to introduce evidence of crimes committed by other gang members, which may have influenced jurors and would not have been otherwise admissible.

The Court of Appeals ruling on Tuesday went even further, overturning the entire conviction.  In accordance with Amirfar’s previously rejected contention, the Court held that by pursuing terrorism charges, the prosecutors “were able to introduce evidence about numerous alleged criminal acts committed by members of the gang over the course of three years.  Without the aura of terrorism looming over the case, the activities of defendants associates in other contexts would have been largely, if not entirely, inadmissible.”

In overturning the conviction, the Court of Appeals also stated that stretching the definition of terrorism to cover gang crime risks “trivializ[ing]” the terms very unique definition.  It would allow the prosecutors, for instance, to “invoke the specter of terrorism every time a Blood assaults a Crip or an organized crime family orchestrates the murder of a rival syndicate’s soldier,” the Court held.

Many experts say that this ruling has important implications for how future terrorism cases will be handled – not only because the decision came from New York’s highest court, but because New York is widely perceived to be a national leader in issues related to terrorism.  Even the Bronx District Attorney’s office conceded the importance and novelty of the case.  At the same time, the prosecutors stated that Morales will be retried on the non-terror charges.