Opinion
February 2, 1993
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Daniel P. FitzGerald, J.).
The trial court properly denied defendant's motion to preclude the testimony of the People's identification witness because of their failure to provide notice of her testimony (CPL 710.30) upon its finding, after a voir dire outside the presence of the jury (People v Vargas, 118 Misc.2d 477), that the witness was sufficiently familiar with defendant so as to render her photographic identification merely confirmatory (see, People v Rodriguez, 79 N.Y.2d 445). In any event, the admission of the challenged witness's testimony was harmless in view of the overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt based upon the testimony of the other witness, who had been defendant's lover for several months shortly before the shooting and whose familiarity with him was not seriously challenged (see, People v Bernard, 188 A.D.2d 348). The court's instruction that "a reasonable doubt is a doubt which you can explain logically and coherently" defined the required degree of clarity and coherence of thought, focusing on the jurors' intellectual effort, and did not impose upon them an affirmative obligation to specifically articulate the basis for such doubt (see, People v Antommarchi, 80 N.Y.2d 247, 251-252).
Concur — Murphy, P.J., Wallach, Ross and Asch, JJ.