People v. Degrijze
Opinion of the Court
—Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Golia, J.), rendered April 15, 1991, convicting him of murder in the second degree, attempted robbery in the first degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. The appeal brings up for review the denial, after a hearing, of that branch of the defendant’s omnibus motion which was to suppress statements made by him to the police.
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
In November of 1989, the defendant walked into a police station in Queens and spontaneously stated that he wished to confess to a homicide he had committed eight or nine years earlier. After he was taken to Detective Charles Lappe, the defendant was given Miranda warnings (see, Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436), and gave detailed oral and written confessions concerning a woman he had stabbed to death in the hallway of her apartment building in 1980. During the oral confession, Detective Bianco, who had heard of the defendant’s initial, pr e-Miranda confession, entered the room with the homicide file relating to the murder to which the defendant was confessing. According to the testimony of Detective Lappe, Detective Bianco produced the file within minutes of the defendant having entered Lappe’s office. During the cross examination of Detective Lappe, defense counsel questioned how this old case file could have been produced so quickly, suggesting that this particular file had been chosen at random. Detective Lappe testified that he did not know how the file was retrieved so quickly. Upon the direct examination of Detective Anthony Spataro, the People, attempting to rebut the defense suggestion, elicited testimony that the file had been retrieved based on the defendant’s initial, pr e-Miranda statement. Defense counsel moved for a mistrial, arguing that he had not received prior notice of the defendant’s initial preMiranda statement. While denying the mistrial motion, the court ordered the testimony stricken.
Contrary to the defendant’s assertions on appeal, the initial
Finally, by failing to object to alleged misconduct during the prosecutor’s summation, the defendant failed to preserve this issue for appellate review (see, CPL 470.05; People v Stewart, 160 AD2d 966). In any event, although the several comments made by the prosecutor were offensive and unnecessary, they did not deprive the defendant of a fair trial (see, People v Galloway, 54 NY2d 396; People v Ashwal, 39 NY2d 105). Thompson, J. P., Miller, Eiber and Santucci, JJ., concur.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.