Opinion
5785
January 3, 2002.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Bernard Fried, J.), rendered November 17, 2000, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of 12 counts of grand larceny in the fourth degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to concurrent terms of 2 to 4 years, unanimously affirmed.
GRETCHEN FRITZ, for respondent.
LISA JOY ROBERTSON, for defendant-appellant.
Before: Sullivan, J.P., Rosenberger, Lerner, Rubin, Buckley, JJ.
The court properly denied defendant's application made pursuant toBatson v. Kentucky ( 476 U.S. 79) since defendant failed to establish that the prosecutor's proffered explanations for challenging the panelists at issue were pretextual. The court's acceptance of the prosecutor's employment-based reasons for challenging these panelists is entitled to great deference (see, People v. Wint, 237 A.D.2d 195, lv denied 89 N.Y.2d 1103). We note that there was no disparate treatment by the prosecutor of similarly situated panelists.
The verdict was based on legally sufficient evidence and was not against the weight of the evidence. Defendant's accessorial liability was clearly established. The only rational explanation of defendant's entire course of conduct, with particular reference to his ultimate rendezvous with the codefendant, is that defendant was part of a scheme in which his role was to create a distraction permitting the codefendant to steal the victim's purse (see, People v. Whatley, 69 N.Y.2d 784, 785).
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.