Opinion
January 16, 1997.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Michael Corriero, J.), rendered May 12, 1994, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of murder in the second degree and two counts of robbery in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a juvenile offender, to concurrent terms of 9 years to life, 3 1/3 to 10 years and 3 1/3 to 10 years, respectively, unanimously affirmed.
Before: Ellerin, J. P., Wallach, Nardelli, Tom and Mazzarelli, JJ.
The trial court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in permitting the 13-year-old eyewitness to testify since the record supports a conclusion that the witness "`ha[d] sufficient intelligence to understand the nature of an oath and to give a reasonably accurate account of what he ha[d] seen and heard'" ( People v Parks, 41 NY2d 36, 45). The court was able to elicit from the witness a straightforward understanding of the difference between telling the truth and lying, and of the importance of telling the truth in this proceeding.