Opinion
December 2, 1997
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Felice Shea, J.).
The challenged portions of the People's summation do not warrant reversal. The court's curative action obviated any prejudice arising from the prosecutor's summation comments.
Defendant failed to create an adequate record regarding the ethnic makeup of the jury panel. This precludes review of his claim, made before the trial court only after jury selection had been completed, that the prosecutor exercised peremptory challenges to remove the only two African-American males from the panel ( see, People v. Millan, 216 A.D.2d 93, 94, lv denied 86 N.Y.2d 798). In any event, the court properly concluded that the prosecutor's multiple stated grounds for the exercise of a peremptory challenge against each of the two individuals in question were non-pretextual ( see, Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765; People v. Hernandez, 75 N.Y.2d 350, affd 500 U.S. 352). None of the unchallenged prospective jurors possessed the same combinations of characteristics as the venirepersons in question.
Concur — Rosenberger, J. P., Ellerin, Nardelli, Williams and Andrias, JJ.