Opinion
December 20, 1993
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Rienzi, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
In reliance on People v Antommarchi ( 80 N.Y.2d 247), the defendant argues that he was deprived of his right to be present during a material stage of the trial when the court conducted sidebar conferences, outside of his presence, with prospective jurors with respect to their ability to be unbiased and impartial. This argument must be rejected. In People v Mitchell ( 80 N.Y.2d 519), the Court of Appeals held that the Antommarchi rule was to be given only prospective application, i.e., it was to be applied "only to those cases in which jury selection occurred after October 27, 1992, the date People v Antommarchi was decided" (People v Mitchell, supra, at 528-529). Since jury selection in this case occurred prior to October 27, 1992, the defendant's argument must be rejected.
The trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to set aside the verdict based on alleged juror misconduct. There was no showing that the jury was improperly influenced by matters going beyond the scope of the trial evidence (see, People v Brown, 48 N.Y.2d 388, 393; People v Lehrman, 155 A.D.2d 693; People v Thomas, 170 A.D.2d 549), nor was there any showing of any other improper outside influences (see, People v Thomas, supra; People v Maddox, 139 A.D.2d 597). Mangano, P.J., Balletta, Lawrence and O'Brien, JJ., concur.