Inderly Instinfil, a 19-year-old Black / African American male, was fatally shot on the evening of June 17, 2018, during a confrontation inside a residence at 20 Fairview Avenue in Hudson, New York. Contemporary reporting identified Instinfil as being from Philmont, rather than Hudson itself. The shooting occurred at approximately 8:30 p.m. and left Instinfil with a gunshot wound to the neck.
Despite being seriously wounded, he was able to leave the residence and take a taxi to Columbia Memorial Hospital. He died there from his injuries.
Investigators quickly focused on a 27-year-old Hudson man believed to have fired the shot. Police initially described him as armed and dangerous and circulated an older mugshot while attempting to locate him. The search extended beyond Hudson, and only hours after the shooting he was found and arrested at a motel in Kingston. He was returned to Hudson and arraigned in Hudson City Court in connection with Instinfil's death. Prosecutors ultimately charged him with second-degree murder, setting up a case in which the circumstances immediately preceding the single gunshot became central to determining whether the killing was criminal or legally justified.
As the case developed, investigators and attorneys reconstructed an escalating dispute that had begun earlier on June 17. According to the defense account later presented in court, the accused shooter, whose family owned the Fairview Avenue property, became involved in an argument with a tenant and other people outside the residence. At one point he displayed a handgun, but his brother persuaded him to go back inside. Instinfil subsequently armed himself with a tire iron and entered the residence. Once inside, the confrontation culminated in the accused firing one shot.
The prosecution and defense presented sharply different interpretations of that encounter. Prosecutors argued that Instinfil had effectively been drawn into the house and then intentionally shot. An important part of the prosecution's theory was that Instinfil had been shot from behind, a circumstance they contended undermined the claim that the gunfire was necessary to stop an imminent attack. The defense maintained that Instinfil entered the home carrying the tire iron and that the accused fired because he believed he needed to protect himself inside his residence.
The physical path of the bullet became one of the most important issues at trial. Defense counsel challenged the prosecution's interpretation of the wound and argued that the bullet entered the front area of Instinfil's neck, indicating that he was facing the shooter when the gun was fired. That interpretation supported the defense's contention that the men were confronting one another at the moment of the shooting rather than that Instinfil was retreating or had his back turned.
The murder case eventually went before a Columbia County jury in June 2019. Jurors deliberated for roughly two and a half days and carefully revisited evidence relating to what happened inside the house. During deliberations they requested that a 911 call made shortly after the shooting be replayed, and they also asked the judge to explain again the legal definition of justification and self-defense. In addition to the murder accusation, the jury was permitted to consider the lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter.
The jury ultimately found the accused shooter not guilty of both murder and manslaughter, accepting the position that the shooting was justified as an act of self-defense. The district attorney acknowledged that the self-defense issue made the case one that had to be resolved by a jury and said he respected the verdict. After having remained in the Columbia County Jail from shortly after the killing through the trial, the accused was released following the acquittal.
No separate illegal-weapons charge resulted from the handgun used in the shooting. During the trial, the accused testified that he had borrowed the firearm from a friend earlier. His defense attorney later said prosecutors apparently had been unable to locate that individual or assemble sufficient evidence for a separate weapons prosecution. Although an arrest and second-degree murder prosecution followed Instinfil's death, the criminal case therefore ended without a conviction, with the jury determining that the fatal shooting had occurred under circumstances legally constituting self-defense.
