| People v Mapp |
| 2020 NY Slip Op 07097 [188 AD3d 1260] |
| November 25, 2020 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
[*1]
| The People of the State of New York,Respondent, v Eden Mapp, Appellant. |
Ronald S. Nir, Kew Gardens, NY, for appellant.
Melinda Katz, District Attorney, Kew Gardens, NY (Johnnette Traill, Sharon Y. Brodt, andRussell Shapiro of counsel), for respondent.
Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (DeborahStevens Modica, J.), rendered January 9, 2018, convicting him of attempted murder in the seconddegree, assault in the first degree, assault in the second degree and falsely reporting an incident inthe third degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
At trial, the defendant asserted the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance asjustification for his act of stabbing the victim multiple times. By doing so, the defendantnecessarily placed his state of mind at the time of the incident in issue (see People v Cass, 18 NY3d 553,561 [2012]). "[W]here a defendant puts an affirmative fact—such as a claim regardinghis/her state of mind—in issue, evidence of other uncharged crimes or prior bad acts maybe admitted to rebut such fact" (People vCass, 18 NY3d 553, 561 [2012]). Thus, it was not error for the court to admit evidenceof the defendant's prior violence toward the victim, as it was "highly probative" and "directlyrelevant to defendant's extreme emotional disturbance defense in that it ha[d] a logical andnatural tendency to disprove his specific claim that he was acting under an extreme emotionaldisturbance" at the time of the instant crimes (People v Cass, 18 NY3d at 563).
There is no merit to the defendant's contention that he was deprived of a fair trial by theadmission of a letter into evidence which had been provided by prior defense counsel to thecourt, was purportedly written by a friend of the defendant, and was contained within the courtfile. During cross-examination, the defendant denied knowing the author of the letter. Thus, theletter was properly admitted during cross examination of the defendant's expert as relevant andprobative to the issue of the defendant's truthfulness, since the expert admitted that he reliedprimarily upon the defendant's statements in determining that he had suffered an extremeemotional disturbance at the time of the crimes (see People v Scarola, 71 NY2d 769, 777[1988]). Moreover, any prejudicial effect the evidence in question may have had on the defendantwas substantially outweighed by its probative value (see People v Scarola, 71 NY2d at777; People v Louis, 192 AD2d 558 [1993]). In any event, any error in the admission ofthe letter was harmless, as there was overwhelming evidence of the defendant's guilt of thecrimes of which he was convicted, and no significant probability that the error contributed to hisconvictions (see People v Crimmins, 36 NY2d 230, 241-242 [1975]; People v Beer, 146 AD3d 895,896-897 [2017]).
The defendant's contention that his due process right to a fair trial was violated by certainstatements made by the prosecutor during her summation is without merit, since the majority ofthe comments were fair comment on the evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawntherefrom, or fair response to defense counsel's summation (see People v Lindsey, 172 AD3d 1233, 1234 [2019]; People v Hogue, 166 AD3d 1009,1011 [2018]). To the extent the comments were improper, they were not so flagrant or pervasiveas to deprive the defendant of a fair trial (see People v Nelson, 186 AD3d 1404 [2020]; People v Wilkinson, 185 AD3d734, 737 [2020]), and were otherwise harmless (see People v McClinton, 180 AD3d 712, 714 [2020]; People v McNeil, 176 AD3d 1105[2019]).
Finally, the sentence imposed was not excessive (see People v Suitte, 90 AD2d 80[1982]). Scheinkman, P.J., Maltese, LaSalle and Christopher, JJ., concur.