Opinion
2001-00490
Argued September 26, 2003.
October 27, 2003.
Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Roman, J.), rendered January 9, 2001, convicting him of robbery in the first degree and robbery in the second degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.
Lynn W. L. Fahey, New York, N.Y. (Winston McIntosh of counsel), for appellant.
Richard A. Brown, District Attorney, Kew Gardens, N.Y. (John M. Castellano and Donna Aldea of counsel; Daniel Bresnahan on the brief of counsel), for respondent.
Before: NANCY E. SMITH, J.P., STEPHEN G. CRANE, WILLIAM F. MASTRO, REINALDO E. RIVERA, JJ.
DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and a new trial is ordered.
It was reversible error for the prosecutor to elicit testimony from a detective, over the defense counsel's objection, that the detective arrested the defendant following a lineup after asking the complainant whether she recognized anyone in the lineup. The complainant testified that she identified the defendant at a lineup. The detective's testimony implicitly bolstered the complainant's testimony by providing official confirmation of the complainant's identification of the defendant ( see People v. Trowbridge, 305 N.Y. 471; People v. Bacenet, 297 A.D.2d 817, 818; People v. Veal, 158 A.D.2d 633, 634; cf. People v. Holt, 67 N.Y.2d 819, 821; People v. Stanley, 185 A.D.2d 827, 828-829; People v. Bryan, 179 A.D.2d 667, 668). A violation of the rule against bolstering may not be overlooked except where the evidence of identity is so strong that there is no serious issue upon that point ( see People v. Bacenet, supra; People v. Veal, supra; cf. People v. Johnson, 57 N.Y.2d 969). Here, the evidence that the defendant committed the crime was not so overwhelming as to render the error harmless.
SMITH, J.P., CRANE, MASTRO and RIVERA, JJ., concur.