People v Brown

People v Brown 2010 NY Slip Op 07235 [77 AD3d 446] October 12, 2010 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Rod Brown, Appellant.

—[*1] Richard M. Greenberg, Office of the Appellate Defender, New York (Christopher G. Froelich of counsel), for appellant.

Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Sean T. Masson of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Bruce Allen, J.), rendered July 30, 2008, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth and seventh degrees, and sentencing him, as a second felony drug offender whose prior felony conviction was a violent felony, to an aggregate term of 2½ years, unanimously affirmed.

The People's summation did not deprive defendant of a fair trial. The remarks challenged by defendant generally constituted evidence-based arguments as to why the jury should credit the testimony of the prosecution witnesses and discredit that of defendant; these arguments were responsive to the defense summation and did not shift the burden of proof (see People v Dais, 47 AD3d 421, 422 [2008], lv denied 10 NY3d 809 [2008]; People v Overlee, 236 AD2d 133, 144 [1997], lv denied 91 NY2d 976 [1998]).

The People established a sufficient chain of custody for the drugs seized from defendant, providing reasonable assurances of their identity and substantially unchanged condition (see People v Julian, 41 NY2d 340 [1977]). Any deficiencies in the chain of custody went to the weight and not the admissibility of the evidence (see People v White, 40 NY2d 797, 799-800 [1976]). Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Sweeny, Moskowitz, Acosta and RomÁn, JJ.