The Second Department, reversing defendant’s conviction, determined that the testimony of two police officers (qualified by the court as gang experts( about information gleaned from interviewing gang members was testimonial hearsay, in violation of Crawford, and the police experts acted as summation witnesses, in violation of Iona:
During the trial, the Supreme Court declared Detective Adam Georg an expert “in the hierarchy, practices, [and] languages of the S.N.O.W. Gang and other gangs.” Similarly, the court declared Lieutenant Robert Bracero an expert “in the history, hierarchy, practices and language of the S.N.O.W. Gang and rival gangs.” Georg testified that his knowledge of the S.N.O.W. Gang was derived from, among other things, approximately 70 to 80 debriefings of S.N.O.W. Gang members, many of whom had been arrested and were in custody at the police station or in jail. Similarly, Bracero testified that he debriefed approximately 50 S.N.O.W. Gang members after their arrests. * * *
… [T]he defendant contends that Georg’s and Bracero’s testimony violated Crawford v Washington (541 US 36) by permitting the introduction into evidence of out-of-court testimonial statements made by absent witnesses who were never subjected to cross examination … , and that Georg’s testimony also ran afoul of the proscription against police experts acting as summation witnesses, in violation of People v Inoa (25 NY3d 466, 474-475). …
… .[F]or the reasons set forth in our decision and order on appeal by one of the codefendants (People v Jones, 166 AD3d 803), the testimony of Georg and Bracero violated Crawford and Inoa. Since the evidence of the defendant’s guilt, without reference to the errors, was far from overwhelming, these errors were not harmless … . People v Campbell, 2019 NY Slip Op 05992, Second Dept 7-31-19