TROY, N.Y. (WNYT) — A state appeals court has upheld Michael Hoffler’s murder conviction and sentence of life without parole sentence in the killing of a Troy informant.
In a court order dated June 25, the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Third Department, affirmed Hoffler’s 2016 retrial conviction for first-degree murder. The official court document said prosecutors proved Hoffler arranged for Gregory Heckstall to kill Christopher Drabik in December 2003 to stop him from testifying in Hoffler’s January 2004 drug case.
The court said Hoffler had already won a new trial after his first conviction because prospective jurors were not given the proper oath, but judges ruled that mistake did not bar a retrial on double jeopardy grounds. The panel said the evidence in the first trial was legally sufficient and the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence…