People v Wilson

People v Wilson 2007 NY Slip Op 02985 [39 AD3d 264] April 5, 2007 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, June 6, 2007

The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Edgar S. Wilson, Appellant.

—[*1] Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (William A. Loeb of counsel), for appellant.

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Lucy Jane Lang of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Ronald A. Zweibel, J.), rendered September 9, 2005, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of two counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to concurrent terms of seven years, unanimously affirmed.

The court responded meaningfully to the deliberating jury's request to hear defendant's testimony as to whether he "had drugs" when it limited the read back to defendant's denial that the police recovered a plastic bag of drugs from him, while declining to read the immediately preceding portion of defendant's testimony concerning the officer's search of defendant's person (see People v Almodovar, 62 NY2d 126, 131-132 [1984]). The court's interpretation of the note, which called for very specific testimony, was reasonable. The record fails to support defendant's claim that the preceding testimony should have been included in the read back, and the court's denial of defendant's request to add such testimony did not cause any prejudice (see People v Lourido, 70 NY2d 428, 435 [1987]). To the extent that defendant is raising a constitutional claim, such claim is unpreserved and we decline to review it in the interest of justice. Were we to review such claim, we would reject it. Concur—Andrias, J.P., Marlow, Sullivan, Gonzalez and Kavanagh, JJ.