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X later admitted on tape that when he gets angry he breaks things.) The District Attorney's Office refused to charge Criminal Mischief as a felony (or misdemeanor). Clearly, the unusual table belonged to his wife and, thus, became the object of his anger. X did not break any of his dental equipment or his model airplanes or his personal property.

X had won two months earlier at a church auction. X broke many items in the marital residence - including a chair, a cookie jar and other bric-a-brac, and a $500.00 table that Mrs. To illustrate the nature of the abuse and the context in which criminal mischief could be used, the following actual case is offered as a backdrop to this discussion. Other states have found defendants guilty under similar statutes for damaging community or marital property. In many New York counties, a batterer can destroy property in the marital residence without criminal consequence. Orloff, Providing Legal Protection for Battered Women: An Analysis of State Statutes and Case Law, 21 Hofstra L.

This is so even though batterers often damage property to terrorize, threaten, and exert control over a victim of domestic violence. However, in New York, criminal mischief is not routinely used in domestic violence situations to charge a defendant for destroying community property. New York makes it a crime to damage the "property of another person" where the defendant has "no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right." N.Y. Whether or not a prosecutor in New York can charge defendants with criminal mischief based on their destruction of community owned property?