## Facts

- Police conducted a drug operation and attempted to arrest Thomas Rakusz as a coconspirator in a drug bust.
- When an officer moved to arrest him, Rakusz ran and the officer chased him.
- The officer caught Rakusz, and a struggle followed during the attempted arrest.
- During the struggle, Rakusz reached into (or toward) his jacket pocket.
- Believing Rakusz might be reaching for a gun, the officer pulled Rakusz’s arm away and then put his own hand into Rakusz’s pocket to secure whatever was inside.
- The pocket contained a serrated kitchen knife.
- The officer cut his hand when he reached into the pocket.
- Rakusz was indicted for second-degree assault under N.Y. Penal Law § 120.05(3), alleging he intended to prevent a police officer from performing a lawful duty and caused physical injury to the officer.
- Rakusz moved pretrial to dismiss the assault indictment as legally insufficient, arguing the grand jury proof did not show the required intent and did not show he legally caused the officer’s injury.

## Issues

1. Whether the grand jury evidence was legally sufficient to support second-degree assault under N.Y. Penal Law § 120.05(3) when the officer’s injury occurred after the officer reached into the defendant’s pocket and cut himself on a knife.
2. Whether the evidence supported the statutory mental state—intent to prevent the officer from performing a lawful duty by causing physical injury—where the defendant did not brandish or use the knife and the injury resulted from the officer’s own act.

## Decision

- The court granted Rakusz’s motion to dismiss the indictment to the extent it charged second-degree assault under N.Y. Penal Law § 120.05(3).
- The court concluded the grand jury evidence did not establish the required intent to cause physical injury while preventing the officer from performing a lawful duty.
- The court also found the causal link too attenuated on the proof presented: the officer’s injury resulted from the officer’s deliberate decision to reach into the pocket, rather than from an assaultive use of the knife by Rakusz.

## Legal Principles

- On a motion to dismiss an indictment for legal insufficiency, the question is whether the grand jury evidence, if accepted as true, establishes a prima facie case for the charged offense.
- N.Y. Penal Law § 120.05(3) requires proof that the defendant, with intent to prevent a police officer from performing a lawful duty, caused physical injury to the officer.
- Proof that a defendant resisted arrest or reached toward a pocket containing a weapon does not, without more, establish intent to cause injury; the statute targets intentional injury to obstruct official duties, not every injury occurring during an arrest struggle.
- Criminal liability for “causing” injury requires a sufficiently direct connection between the defendant’s conduct and the harm; where the harm results from an intervening, independent act, the proof may be insufficient to treat the defendant’s conduct as the legal cause for the charged assault.
- Where an officer is injured by inserting his own hand into a suspect’s pocket and contacting a concealed object, the prosecution must still show that the defendant’s conduct and mental state satisfy the assault statute, not merely that the defendant’s conduct created a situation in which injury became possible.

## Conclusion

People v. Rakusz held that a second-degree assault charge under Penal Law § 120.05(3) could not stand on the grand jury proof where the officer cut his own hand after reaching into the defendant’s pocket and there was no showing that the defendant used the knife against the officer or intended to cause the injury while obstructing the arrest; the court therefore dismissed the assault indictment as legally insufficient.


People v. Rakusz, 484 N.Y.S.2d 784 (1985)