| People v Thompson |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 08455 [67 AD3d 519] |
| November 17, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v James Thompson, Appellant. |
—[*1] Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Craig A. Ascher of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Marcy L. Kahn, J.), rendered March 3, 2008,convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the thirddegree and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third and fourth degrees, andsentencing him, as a second felony drug offender, to an aggregate term of four years,unanimously affirmed.
The court denied defendant's mistrial motion made after the prosecutor, without havingobtained a ruling on the matter during the pretrial Sandoval hearing, asked defendant oncross-examination whether he had owed child support arrears at the time of the alleged sale ofnarcotics. Even assuming that the prosecutor's questions violated the Sandoval ruling,the court properly exercised its discretion in denying the mistrial motion. The court provided asufficient remedy when it promptly struck all questions and answers on the issue, and deliveredcurative instructions that the jury is presumed to have followed (see People v Santiago,52 NY2d 865 [1981]; People vRobles, 28 AD3d 233 [2006], lv denied 7 NY3d 817 [2006]). In addition, therecord supports an inference that the prosecutor did not act in bad faith, but believed that such aruling was not required.
The verdict was not against the weight of the evidence (see People v Danielson, 9 NY3d 342, 348-349 [2007]). There is nobasis for disturbing the jury's determinations concerning credibility. Regardless of whether theevidence established a complete chain of custody for the narcotics recovered from defendant andthe buyer, the evidence provided "reasonable assurances of the identity and unchanged conditionof the evidence" (see People vHawkins, 11 NY3d 484, 494 [2008]), and in performing our weight of the evidencereview we do not find that any gaps in the chain are significant enough to undermine the verdict.Concur—Gonzalez, P.J., Saxe, McGuire, Acosta and Roman, JJ.