NEW YORK — An appeals court reinstated a murder charge on Thursday against a former New York state trooper in the death of an 11-year-old girl during a high-speed chase.
In a 4-1 ruling, a mid-level state appeals court said that trooper Christopher Baldner instigated “perilous, unsanctioned high-speed collisions” during two chases, including the one that killed Monica Goods in New York's Hudson Valley in December 2020.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the decision would enable her office to continue “to seek some semblance of justice for the Goods family.”
“As a former state trooper, Christopher Baldner was responsible for serving and protecting the people of New York, but the indictment alleges that he violated that sacred oath and used his vehicle as a deadly weapon, resulting in the senseless death of a young girl," James, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Baldner's union said it strongly disagreed with the court's decision.
“We are deeply concerned that this ruling, if it stands, sets a dangerous precedent that could put a chill on law enforcement officers’ ability to do their job effectively and protect and serve the public,” the New York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association said in a statement.
The union, which is covering Baldner's legal expenses, said he would try to appeal to the state's highest court. A message seeking comment was left for Baldner's lawyer.
The ex-trooper, who retired in 2022, also faces manslaughter and other charges that have stood throughout the case.
A trial judge had dismissed the murder charge last year.
According to the Albany-based appeals court's ruling, witnesses including Monica's father told a grand jury that Baldner stopped the family's SUV, saying it was speeding on the New York State Thruway in Ulster County. The family was en route to a holiday season visit with relatives.
After quarreling with the father, Baldner pepper-sprayed the inside of the SUV.
The father drove off, Baldner pursued and he twice rammed the family’s SUV, according to the ruling. The vehicle overturned multiple times, and Monica was killed.
Baldner told a superior that Goods’ father had repeatedly rammed his patrol car, not the other way around, according to the ruling.
The trial judge had said the ex-trooper exercised poor judgment but the evidence didn't establish that he acted with depraved indifference to human life — a mental state required to prove the second-degree murder charge.
But four state Supreme Court Appellate Division judges said there was enough evidence to take that charge to trial.
Their dissenting colleague, Justice John Egan Jr., wrote that while Baldner may have been reckless in hitting the SUV, he was trying to stop the chase and protect the public.
No trial date has been set for Baldner, who is free on $100,000 bail.
