| People v Ingram |
| 2015 NY Slip Op 01589 [125 AD3d 558] |
| February 24, 2015 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
[*1]
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Tyrell Ingram, Appellant. |
Stanley Neustadter, Cardozo Appeals Clinic, New York (Jeremy Gutman ofcounsel), for appellant.
Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (Julia L. Chariott of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (John W. Carter, J.), rendered March 14,2011, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a weapon in thesecond degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 12 years,unanimously affirmed.
The record fails to support defendant's assertion that the court precluded him fromimpeaching the credibility of a police witness by way of prior bad acts. The courtcorrectly precluded inquiry regarding the existence of a federal lawsuit in which theofficer was one of the named defendants, because the mere existence of the lawsuit wasnot a proper subject for cross-examination (see People v Antonetty, 268 AD2d254 [1st Dept 2000], lv denied 94 NY2d 945 [2000]). The court also correctlyexcluded a police Firearms Discharge/Assault Report, which contained an unelaboratedreference to two prior shootings by the officer in question, because defendant onlyoffered the report under a plainly meritless present-sense-impression theory (seePeople v Brown, 80 NY2d 729, 732-733 [1993]). Defendant did not seek to ask theofficer anything about the underlying facts of the lawsuit, or about the prior shootingsreferenced in the report, and the court did not prevent him from making such requests. Inany event, by failing to provide any specific factual allegations, defendant failed toestablish a good faith basis for eliciting the underlying facts of the lawsuit or the priorshootings under the theory that they involved prior bad acts by this officer bearing on hiscredibility, or under any other theory of admissibility (see People v Andrew, 54AD3d 618 [1st Dept 2008], lv denied 11 NY3d 895 [2008]; see also People v Smith, 122AD3d 456 [1st Dept 2014]).
The court responded meaningfully to the deliberating jury's request for a readback ofspecific testimony (see People v Almodovar, 62 NY2d 126, 131 [1984]). Thecourt's ruling regarding the testimony to be included or excluded was based on areasonable interpretation of [*2]the jury's note, and was aproper exercise of discretion. In any event, defendant has not demonstrated that thecourt's determinations regarding the scope of the readback "seriously prejudiced" him(see People v Lourido, 70 NY2d 428, 435 [1987]). Concur—Friedman,J.P., Sweeny, Saxe, Feinman and Clark, JJ.