Opinion
Argued April 30, 1991
Decided June 6, 1991
Appeal from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the First Judicial Department, Herman Cahn, J., Edward McLaughlin, J.
Steven M. Statsinger and Philip L. Weinstein for appellant.
Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney (Tami J. Aisenson and Mark Dwyer of counsel), for respondent.
MEMORANDUM.
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.
The court's direction to the court officer to "[t]ake the jury out to dinner and a hotel" was not an improper delegation of judicial authority (see, People v Bonaparte, 78 N.Y.2d 26 [decided herewith]). There is no indication on this record that the court officer's communications to the jury in attempting to carry out those instructions were anything other than ministerial.
Further, defense counsel did not ask the court to deliver a sequestration instruction to the jury. Consequently, any claim that the court erred in failing to give such an instruction is not preserved for our review (see, People v Bonaparte, supra).
Nor was the court's Allen charge (see, Allen v United States, 164 U.S. 492) unbalanced or coercive for its failure to emphasize that "the verdict must be the verdict of each individual juror, and not a mere acquiescence in the conclusion of his fellows" (id., at 501). The supplemental instruction viewed as a whole was simply encouraging rather than coercive and was appropriate in light of the fact that the "deadlocked" jury had been deliberating for less than four hours.
Chief Judge WACHTLER and Judges SIMONS, KAYE, ALEXANDER, TITONE, HANCOCK, JR., and BELLACOSA concur.
Order affirmed in a memorandum.