Opinion
February 7, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Harold Rothwax, J.).
The court properly declined to charge petit larceny as a lesser included offense of robbery as the jury could not "`"resort to sheer speculation"'" or employ "selective dissection of the integrated testimony of [the complaining] witness" and thus there was no "identifiable, rational basis on which the jury could reject a portion of the prosecution's case which [was] indispensable to establishment of the higher crime and yet accept so much of the proof as would establish the lesser crime" (People v. Scarborough, 49 N.Y.2d 364, 373, 369-370). Further, the prosecutor's summation was a proper response to the defense contentions (see, People v. Galloway, 54 N.Y.2d 396, 399), and thus the court correctly declined to charge the jury on defendant's right to present inconsistent defenses.
However, as defendant was indigent and represented by assigned counsel at trial as well as on appeal, the imposition of the fine was an improvident exercise of discretion.
Concur — Murphy, P.J., Sullivan, Rosenberger and Ross, JJ.