People v Johnson

People v Johnson 2010 NY Slip Op 05253 [74 AD3d 547] June 15, 2010 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Betty Johnson, Appellant.

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

Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Malancha Chanda of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Kibbie F. Payne, J.), rendered March 18, 2009, as amended April 9, 2009, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of grand larceny in the fourth degree, and sentencing her, as a second felony offender, to a term of 2 to 4 years, unanimously reversed, on the law, and the matter remanded for a new trial.

As the People concede, the court improperly denied defendant's challenge for cause to a prospective juror. The totality of the panelist's responses, culminating in her statement that she was "not sure" if she could use defendant's prior larceny convictions only to judge her credibility and not as propensity evidence, failed to provide an unequivocal assurance of impartiality (see People v Johnson, 94 NY2d 600, 610-614 [2000]). Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Moskowitz, DeGrasse, Abdus-Salaam and Manzanet-Daniels, JJ.