Opinion
No. 570653/16
11-15-2023
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Jasmin Figueroa, Defendant-Appellant.
Defendant appeals from a judgment of the Criminal Court of the City of New York, New York County (Ann E. Scherzer, J.), rendered August 3, 2016, after a jury trial, convicting her of petit larceny, and imposing sentence.
PRESENT: Hagler, P.J., Tisch, J.
PER CURIAM.
Judgment of conviction (Ann E. Scherzer, J.), rendered August 3, 2016, affirmed.
The verdict convicting defendant of petit larceny (see Penal Law § 155.25) was supported by legally sufficient evidence and was not against the weight of the evidence, which showed that defendant stole several items of clothing from complainant, for whom she worked as a nanny.
The court providently exercised its discretion in denying defendant's challenge for cause to a prospective juror who indicated that when she was a child, a nanny had stolen wine from her family (see People v Warrington, 28 N.Y.3d 1116, 1120-1121 [2016]; People v Arnold, 96 N.Y.2d 358, 362-363 [2001]). The prospective juror's statements in totality and in context (see People v Warrington, 28 N.Y.3d at 1120), provided an unequivocal assurance that she could be fair and not be influenced by the crime committed against her family (see People v Chambers, 97 N.Y.2d 417, 419 [2002]; People v Toledo, 101 A.D.3d 571 [2012], lv denied 21 N.Y.3d 947 [2013]). Her family's victimization occurred far in the past and did not have any emotional impact on the prospective juror, and her assurances of impartiality were sufficient (see People v Feliciano, 285 A.D.2d 371 [2001], lv denied 96 N.Y.2d 939 [2001]). Nor were these assurances rendered equivocal by her use of the phrase "I think" (see People v Chambers, 97 N.Y.2d at 419; People v Jacobs, 108 A.D.3d 411 [2013], lv denied 22 N.Y.3d 1139 [2014]).
Defendant failed to preserve her claim that Facebook photographs of her wearing the complainant's clothing were insufficiently authenticated, and we decline to review it in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we find that complainant sufficiently authenticated the photographs (see People v Taylor, 203 A.D.3d 1081, 1082 [2022], lv denied 38 N.Y.3d 1075 [2022]; People v Jordan, 181 A.D.3d 1248, 1249-1250 [2020], lv denied 35 N.Y.3d 1067 [2020]). Moreover, the record demonstrates that the People could have further established authentication if defendant had objected "at a time when the error complained of could readily have been corrected" (People v Robinson, 36 N.Y.2d 224, 228 [1975]; see People v Williams, 192 A.D.3d 487, 487-488 [2021], lv denied 37 N.Y.3d 961 [2021]).