| People v Lopez |
| 2010 NY Slip Op 03386 [72 AD3d 593] |
| April 27, 2010 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Claudio Lopez, Appellant. |
—[*1] Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (David P. Stromes of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (William A. Wetzel, J.), rendered June 23,2008, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of manslaughter in the first degree, and sentencinghim, as a second felony offender, to a term of 17½ years, unanimously affirmed.
The court's Sandoval ruling balanced the appropriate factors and was a properexercise of discretion (see People v Hayes, 97 NY2d 203 [2002]). The matters permittedwere probative of defendant's credibility and were not unduly prejudicial. We have consideredand rejected defendant's related claims concerning the prosecutor's cross-examination andsummation, except that we find the questioning about defendant's familiarity with a particulardrug dealer to be harmless error.
The court properly exercised its discretion in clarifying or directing the rephrasing of someof defense counsel's questions during cross-examination (see e.g. People vHinton, 31 NY2d 71, 76 [1972], cert denied 410 US 911 [1973]). The court'sinterventions involved the form of questions and the necessary foundation for impeachment byway of prior inconsistent statements. Defendant was fully able to impeach the witnesses, andthere was no impairment of his right of confrontation (see Delaware v Van Arsdall, 475US 673, 678-679 [1986]).
The court properly declined to submit manslaughter in the second degree as a lesser includedoffense, since there was no reasonable view of the evidence, viewed in the light most favorableto defendant, that he acted with mere recklessness. Defendant's conduct in inflicting a very deepstab wound to the victim's vital organs could only be interpreted as evincing a deliberate designto cause the victim's death, or at least gravely injure him, and the crime was intentional ornothing (see People v Butler, 84 NY2d 627, 634 [1994]). While evidence presented onthe defense case supported a theory that defendant was justified in stabbing the victim, thatevidence did not undermine the inference that the stabbing, even if in self-defense, was at leastintended to cause serious physical injury; under defendant's view of the evidence he would havebeen[*2]entitled to a complete acquittal, not a finding that he actedrecklessly.
We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence. Concur—Tom, J.P., Mazzarelli, Saxe,Andrias and DeGrasse, JJ.