Opinion
03-10-2016
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Donald MILLER, Defendant–Appellant.
Seymour W. James, Jr., The Legal Aid Society, New York (Angie Louie of counsel), for appellant. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Courtney M. Wen of counsel), for respondent.
Seymour W. James, Jr., The Legal Aid Society, New York (Angie Louie of counsel), for appellant.
Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Courtney M. Wen of counsel), for respondent.
Opinion
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Michael J. Obus, J.), rendered July 14, 2010, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony drug offender previously convicted of a violent felony, to a term of six years, unanimously affirmed.
The court properly denied defendant's suppression motion. The purchasing undercover officer's description of the seller included a very detailed clothing description, and there was sufficient proximity to the officer's observation of defendant coming out of a building he had entered after the sale to make it highly unlikely that the person arrested was not the seller, but an identically dressed innocent person (see People v. Coleman, 77 A.D.3d 591, 911 N.Y.S.2d 288 [1st Dept.2010], lv. denied 16 N.Y.3d 829, 921 N.Y.S.2d 193, 946 N.E.2d 181 [2011] ). Accordingly, there was probable cause for defendant's arrest.
The court properly exercised its discretion in denying defendant's mistrial motion, made on the ground that a police witness mentioned the recovery of a sum of cash other than buy money from defendant, after the court had precluded such evidence. The court's curative actions, including striking the testimony, were sufficient (see People v. Santiago, 52 N.Y.2d 865, 437 N.Y.S.2d 75, 418 N.E.2d 668 [1981] ), and the offending testimony was not particularly prejudicial in any event. Defendant's challenges to the content and timing of the court's instruction on disregarding stricken testimony are unpreserved, and we decline to review them in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we find no basis for reversal.