## Facts

- Nelson Arzon allegedly intentionally set fire to a couch on the fifth floor of an abandoned building at 358 East 8th Street in Manhattan, causing a serious fire.
- Firefighters arrived and found the rear portion of the fifth and sixth floors burning; after making no progress and lacking additional assistance, they began to withdraw.
- During withdrawal, firefighters were suddenly enveloped by dense smoke later traced to a separate, independent arson fire on the second floor, with virtually no evidence linking Arzon to that second fire.
- The combined conditions from the two fires made evacuation extremely hazardous; Firefighter Martin Celic was injured and later died.
- Arzon was indicted for second-degree murder under both depraved-indifference and felony-murder theories, plus third-degree arson.
- Arzon moved pretrial to dismiss the murder counts, arguing the grand-jury evidence was legally insufficient as to recklessness/depraved indifference and causation.

## Issues

1. Whether the grand-jury evidence was legally sufficient to support second-degree depraved-indifference murder where defendant set a serious fire in an allegedly abandoned building and a firefighter died during the response.
2. Whether the grand-jury evidence was legally sufficient to support second-degree felony murder predicated on arson where an independent second arson fire contributed to the fatal conditions.

## Decision

- The court denied the motion to dismiss and sustained both second-degree murder counts as legally sufficient.
- The evidence supported depraved-indifference murder because intentionally setting a serious fire in a multi-story urban building created a grave risk of death to persons expected to respond, including firefighters.
- The evidence supported felony murder because defendant’s arson could be found a sufficiently direct and foreseeable cause of the firefighter’s death.
- The independent second-floor arson did not, on this record, break the chain of causation because defendant’s fire remained an indispensable link placing the victim in a position of heightened danger.

## Legal Principles

- Depraved-indifference murder may be supported by proof that a defendant recklessly created a grave risk of death under circumstances showing an utter disregard for human life; the conduct need not target a specific victim.
- In homicide prosecutions, causation may be established where the defendant’s conduct is a sufficiently direct cause of death and the fatal result was reasonably foreseeable.
- An intervening act does not necessarily relieve criminal liability if the intervening harm was a reasonably foreseeable outgrowth of the risk created by the defendant and the defendant’s conduct remained a substantial factor in producing death.
- The fact that a structure is described as “abandoned” does not preclude foreseeability that firefighters will respond and face life-threatening dangers from conditions created by an arson fire.

## Conclusion

The court held that grand-jury proof that the defendant set a serious fire in a multi-story urban building was sufficient to support depraved-indifference and felony-murder counts for a firefighter’s death, because the response and resulting danger were foreseeable and the independent second fire did not sever causation where the defendant’s arson remained a substantial, direct contributing cause.


People v. Arzon, 92 Misc. 2d 739, 401 N.Y.S.2d 156 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Cnty. 1978)