| People v Gonzalez |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 09532 [68 AD3d 627] |
| December 22, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Fausto Gonzalez, Appellant. |
—[*1] Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Christopher P. Marinelli of counsel),for respondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Daniel P. FitzGerald, J.), rendered November28, 2008, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of two counts of murder in the first degree andfour counts of murder in the second degree, and sentencing him to an aggregate term of lifewithout parole, unanimously affirmed.
Without objection, the court employed a pre-voir dire screening device for prospective jurorsthat was essentially similar to the procedure described in People v Casanova (62 AD3d 88 [2009], lv denied 12NY3d 852 [2009]). For the reasons stated in Casanova, we find that this procedure wasnot a mode of proceedings error exempt from the requirement of preservation, and we decline toreview defendant's unpreserved challenge to that procedure in the interest of justice. We rejectdefendant's arguments to the contrary, including his argument that the court "relinquishe[d]control" (People v Toliver, 89 NY2d 843, 844 [1996]) over jury selection. The court, ineffect, excused certain jurors as unqualified on the basis of their responses to a single questionposed by the court. Thus, the court supervised that stage of jury selection, notwithstanding that itdid so in a manner to which defendant belatedly objects. Concur—Sweeny, J.P.,Catterson, Renwick, Freedman and Abdus-Salaam, JJ.