| People v Meyes |
| 2013 NY Slip Op 08508 [112 AD3d 516] |
| December 19, 2013 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Angelo Meyes, Appellant. |
—[*1] Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Alice Wiseman of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Charles H. Solomon, J.), renderedOctober 22, 2010, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of attempted robbery in thefirst and second degrees, and sentencing him to an aggregate term of five years,unanimously affirmed.
The court properly exercised its discretion when it denied defendant's application topresent expert testimony on eyewitness identification. The victim's identification ofdefendant was both highly reliable and corroborated by strong circumstantial evidencethat did not depend on the accuracy of the identification.
In addition to evidence that the police arrested defendant within a few blocks of thescene of the crime within minutes after the crime occurred, that defendant was the onlyperson in the area, and that defendant matched the victim's description of the perpetrator,the evidence showed that the victim followed defendant and had him under observationfor the entire period between the crime and the arrest, except for very brief intervals.Given the circumstances under which defendant was observed and apprehended, experttestimony on identification would have been of little or no value to the jury (see People v Zohri, 82 AD3d493 [1st Dept 2011], lv denied 16 NY3d 901 [2011]). These circumstanceswere independent of the victim's identification itself, and they constituted "significantcorroborating evidence" (id. at 494). The victim had ample opportunity toobserve defendant, and his accurate description of defendant's unusual hairstyle faroutweighed any alleged deficiencies in the description.
Defendant did not preserve his particular challenges to the procedures by which thecourt disposed of the reverse Batson application (see People vRichardson, 100 NY2d 847, 853 [2003]; People v Smocum, 99 NY2d 418,423-424 [2003]), and we decline to review them in the interest of justice. As analternative holding, we also reject them on the merits (see People v Payne, 88NY2d 172, 184 [1996]). The record supports the court's express and implied findings(see Payne, 88 NY2d at 185) that the race-neutral reasons provided by defensecounsel for the peremptory challenge at issue were pretextual. The court's reasoning issupported by the record, which shows that other people who were victims of violentcrime were seated and selected as alternates. These findings, based primarily on thecourt's assessment of counsel's credibility, are [*2]entitledto great deference (see Snyder v Louisiana, 552 US 472, 477 [2008]; Peoplev Hernandez, 75 NY2d 350, 356 [1990], affd 500 US 352 [1991]; People v Chicco, 19 AD3d199, 199 [1st Dept 2005]). Concur—Andrias, J.P., Friedman, Richter,Manzanet-Daniels and Feinman, JJ.