| People v Morales |
| 2011 NY Slip Op 06863 [87 AD3d 1165] |
| September 27, 2011 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Edwin Morales, Appellant. |
—[*1] Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Leonard Joblove, Sholom J. Twersky,and Gabriel E. Estadella of counsel), for respondent.
Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Chun, J.),rendered September 30, 2009, convicting him of robbery in the third degree, upon a jury verdict,and burglary in the second degree, upon his plea of guilty, and imposing sentence.
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
The defendant contends that the trial court erred in declining to discharge a sworn jurorwithout conducting a sufficiently thorough inquiry regarding the juror's prior unpaid internshipwith the prosecution's office (see CPL 270.35). However, the defendant did not object tothe sufficiency of the trial court's inquiry prior to declining to discharge the juror, or request thatany further inquiry be made. Accordingly, the defendant's contention is unpreserved for appellatereview (see People v Jones, 260 AD2d 647, 647-648 [1999]).
In any event, the record does not support the defendant's contention that the deliberating jurorconcealed his place of employment during voir dire. Moreover, once the juror was questionedabout his internship, his responses established that he was not biased against the defendant.Therefore, the Supreme Court properly determined that the juror was not grossly unqualified(see CPL 270.35; People v Williams, 272 AD2d 563, 564 [2000]; People vGrace, 243 AD2d 579, 579-580 [1997]).
The defendant's contentions that the prosecutor's summation remarks constituted reversibleerror because she allegedly mischaracterized the evidence, vouched for the accuracy of thecomplainant's identification, and made inflammatory comments, are unpreserved for appellatereview because he failed to object, request curative instructions, or timely move for a mistrial onthese grounds (see CPL 470.05 [2]; People v Balls, 69 NY2d 641, 642 [1986]; People v Salnave, 41 AD3d 872,874 [2007]). In any event, the comments alleged to be prejudicial either were fair comment onthe evidence (see People v Ashwal, 39 NY2d 105 [1976]), were responsive to argumentsand theories presented in the defense summation (see People v Galloway, 54 NY2d 396[1981]), or constituted harmless error (see People v Crimmins, 36 NY2d 230, 241-242[1975]; People v Hill, 286 AD2d 777, 778 [2001]). Skelos, J.P., Eng, Austin and Miller,JJ., concur.