Opinion
1500
June 24, 2003.
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Joseph Cerbone, J.), rendered November 2, 2000, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of assault in the third degree, and sentencing her to a term of 6 months, unanimously affirmed.
Albert Ceva, for respondent.
Monica A. Lamb, for defendant-appellant.
Before: Nardelli, J.P., Andrias, Saxe, Williams, Friedman, JJ.
The prosecutor did not violate the court's Sandoval ruling when he began to elicit some of the underlying facts of defendant's prior conviction for selling drugs, and the court properly denied defendant's mistrial motion made on this ground. Viewing the Sandoval proceeding as a whole, we conclude that the ruling permitted elicitation of both the conviction and its underlying facts. In any event, the prosecutor's inquiry was cut off by defendant's objection after only a few words, was never completed, and went unanswered (see People v. Terry, 219 A.D.2d 529,lv denied 87 N.Y.2d 851). The jury is presumed to have followed the court's instructions that questions are not evidence.
The court's instruction on interested witnesses provided the jury with sufficient guidance, given the facts of the case, upon which to evaluate the possible interests of the People's witnesses (see People v. Inniss, 83 N.Y.2d 653, 659; People v. Agosto, 73 N.Y.2d 963, 967; People v. Pizarro, 190 A.D.2d 634, lv denied 81 N.Y.2d 1018).
We have considered and rejected defendant's remaining arguments.
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.