Summary
allowing witness's prior statement as background to explain why the police stopped the defendant
Summary of this case from Dejesus v. NoethOpinion
96
Decided June 6, 2002.
APPEAL, by permission of an Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the First Judicial Department, entered October 16, 2001, which modified, as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, a judgment of the Supreme Court (Alexander Hunter, J.), renered in Bronx County upon a verdict convicting defendant of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, and sentencing him, as a persistent violent felony offender, to a term of 17 years to life. The modificaton consisted of reducing the sentence to a term of 12 years to life.
People v. Tosca, 287 A.D.2d 330, affirmed.
Office of the Appellate Defender, New York City (Melissa Rothstein and Richard M. Greenberg of counsel), for appellant.
Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (David S. Weisel of counsel), for respondent.
Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Smith, Levine, Ciparick, Wesley, Rosenblatt, and Graffeo, concur.
OPINION OF THE COURT
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the police officers' testimony concerning an unidentified cab dirver's report of a recent encounter with the armed defendant. The testimony was admitted not for its truth, but to provide background information as to how and why the police pursued and confronted defendant ( see, People v. Till, 87 N.Y.2d 835, 837). Further, the trial court twice explicitly instructed the jury on the limited use it could make of the testimony was not to be considered proof of the uncharged crime.
Finally, defendant was not unduly prejudiced by the prosecution's questionable remarks during summation, given the trial court's prompt curative instructions ( cf. People v. Ashwal, 39 N.Y.2d 105, 111).
On review of submissions pursuant to section 500.4 of the Rules, order affirmed, in a memorandum.