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EVIDENCE DEFENDANT’S STEPFATHER APOLOGIZED TO THE ROBBERY VICTIM FOR THE DEFENDANT’S ACTIONS AND THE TESTIMONY ABOUT AN ANONYMOUS INFORMANT’S IDENTIFICATION OF THE DEFENDANT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED, PROSECUTOR SHOULD NOT HAVE ENCOURAGED INFERENCE OF GUILT BASED ON FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE, APPELLATE ISSUES CONSIDERED IN THE INTEREST OF JUSTICE (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing defendant’s conviction, reaching the appellate issues in the interest of justice, determined that improperly admitted evidence warranted a new trial, noting that the prosecutor also acted improperly. The identity of the defendant was a key issue in this robbery case. The victim (Fernandez) should not have been allowed to testify that the defendant’s stepfather told the victim he was sorry for what defendant had done and returned the victim’s keys. Also, the investigating detective should not have been allowed to testify that an anonymous informant had identified the defendant:

There was no showing that the defendant participated in or was in any way connected to his stepfather’s actions … .

… [T]he testimony of an investigating detective recounting a conversation with an anonymous informant, a nontestifying witness, violated the defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution… . The informant reportedly was an eyewitness to the crime and identified the defendant by name. The testimony “went beyond the permissible bounds of provid[ing] background information as to how and why the police pursued [the] defendant” … . …

Upon retrial, we remind the People that, on summation, a prosecutor may not “improperly encourage[ ] inferences of guilt based on facts not in evidence” … . Here, there was no evidence to support the prosecutor’s assertion that Fernandez had identified the defendant as the robber “immediately” by recognizing a distinctive “dot” on the defendant’s face. People v Gonsalves, 2019 NY Slip Op 01792, Second Dept 3-13-19

 

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