The Chautauqua County District Attorney’s Office said it plans to appeal a state Supreme Court ruling that last week granted a Dunkirk woman tied to a fatal shooting in 2017 a new trial.

Jason Schmidt said his office is in the process of preparing an “application for leave” to the Court of Appeals. The district attorney said the application could be filed sometime this week regarding the decision to grant Rebecca Ruiz a new trial.

“We have carefully reviewed and do not agree with the Fourth Department’s majority decision in the Ruiz case,” Schmidt said.

The Dunkirk woman shot and killed 21-year-old Julian Duman the night of July 6, 2017, at her 141 Lake Shore Drive home. She fired through a door, thinking Duman was her estranged husband.

Ruiz was acquitted of murder and manslaughter at trial in March 2018 but found guilty of a second-degree criminal possession of a weapon charge. She appealed the lone conviction, which netted her a sentence of six years in state prison and five years post-release supervision, stating that the court erred by denying to instruct the jury on “the defense of temporary and lawful possession of a firearm.”

In granting the new trial, the justices with the Fourth Department Appellate Division wrote in their ruling that the county court should have approved Ruiz’s request to have the jury instructed on a defense for having the gun at the time of the shooting. They said, in part, that Ruiz had “inadvertently discovered the firearm while attempting to protect herself in the face of an imminent threat.”

The ruling last week, however, was not unanimous. Justice Patrick H. NeMoyer dissented, and in a memo wrote, “In my view the majority’s analysis conflates temporary lawful possession with justification and ignores a body of binding authority from the Court of Appeals.”

The 32-year-old Ruiz has been incarcerated at the Albion Correctional Facility since July 2018. She is eligible for release in November 2022.