1 No. 78
   The People &c.,
   Appellant,
   v.
   Ramon Roche,
   Respondent.
     _________________________________________________________________

   2002 NY Int. 63

   June 4, 2002

   This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication
   in the New York Reports.

   Sheryl Feldman, for appellant.
   Eunice C. Lee, for respondent.
   Sanctuary For Families' Center for Battered Women's Legal Sevices et
   al., amicus curiæ.
     _________________________________________________________________

   GRAFFEO, J.:

   In this prosecution stemming from the brutal stabbing by defendant of
   his common-law wife, the Appellate Division reversed defendant's
   conviction of murder in the second degree based on the trial court's
   failure to charge the jury concerning the affirmative defense of
   extreme emotional disturbance. Because the evidence at trial was
   insufficient to support the defense of extreme emotional disturbance,
   we reverse the Appellate Division order and reinstate defendant's
   conviction.

   Defendant was charged with murder in the second degree based on the
   December 1991 stabbing death of Lillian Rivera in the Manhattan
   apartment they shared. He was convicted of murder in the second degree
   at his first trial, at which he neither requested nor received an
   extreme emotional disturbance charge. The conviction was reversed on
   appeal due to an improper Allen charge and the case was remitted for
   retrial (see 239 AD2d 270).

   At the second trial, the People offered proof that the victim was
   stabbed 12 to 14 times in the face, back and chest. She was discovered
   lying face up on the kitchen floor of the blood-spattered apartment. A
   trail of blood on the furniture, walls and floors throughout the
   living room, hallway and kitchen suggested a violent struggle.
   Forensic evidence indicated the two deep, and ultimately fatal, stab