People v Charlton
2006 NYSlipOp 02209
March 21, 2006
Appellate Division, Second Department
As corrected through Wednesday, May 17, 2006


The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Georgia Charlton, Appellant.

[*1]Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (D'Emic, J.), rendered March 15, 2004, convicting her of assault in the first degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.

Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.

The defendant's contention that she was deprived of a fair trial because the prosecutor made improper comments during summation is unpreserved for appellate review. The defendant either failed to object to the comments (see People v Hines, 18 AD3d 882, 883 [2005]), failed to object with specificity (see People v Arroyo, 309 AD2d 870 [2003]), or failed to request further curative instructions or a mistrial after an objection was sustained (see People v Morris, 2 AD3d 652 [2003]). In any event, the allegedly improper comments were, for the most part, responsive to arguments and issues raised by the defense counsel, fair comment on the evidence, or related to matters which were fairly inferable from the evidence (see People v Ashwal, 39 NY2d 105 [1976]; People v Shagi, 288 AD2d 495 [2001]). To the extent that any remarks were improper, any error was mitigated by the court's charge to the jury (see People v Joseph, 20 AD3d 435 [2005]; People v Credle, 12 AD3d 456 [2004]), or does not warrant reversal (see People v Crimmins, 36 NY2d 230 [1975]; People v Jones, 23AD3d 496 [2005]).

The defendant was not deprived of the effective assistance of counsel (see People v Baldi, 54 NY2d 137 [1981]). The defendant failed to demonstrate the absence of strategic or other legitimate explanations for her counsel's alleged failures in representation (see People v Martinez, [*2]17 AD3d 484, 484-485 [2005]).

The defendant's remaining contentions, raised in her supplemental pro se brief, are without merit. Miller, J.P., Luciano, Lunn and Dillon, JJ., concur.


NYPTI Decisions © 2026 is a project of New York Prosecutors Training Institute (NYPTI) made possible by leveraging the work we've done providing online research and tools to prosecutors.

NYPTI would like to thank New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, New York State Senate's Open Legislation Project, New York State Unified Court System, New York State Law Reporting Bureau and Free Law Project for their invaluable assistance making this project possible.

Install the free RECAP extensions to help contribute to this archive. See https://free.law/recap/ for more information.