Opinion
November 9, 1993
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Franklin Weissberg, J.).
While defendant's challenge to the court's interested witness charge is preserved, the charge did not deprive him of due process by singling him out as an interested witness as a matter of law without balancing language indicating the potential interest of the prosecution's witnesses.
It has been repeatedly held that the standard interested witness instruction that was given here, which instructs that the defendant is an interested witness as a matter of law and that the jury is free to find, as a matter of fact, that any of the prosecution's witnesses are also interested witnesses, is properly balanced (People v Agosto, 73 N.Y.2d 963, 967; see also, e.g., People v Pizarro, 190 A.D.2d 634, lv denied 81 N.Y.2d 1018; People v Grant, 186 A.D.2d 267, lv denied 81 N.Y.2d 762; People v Holly, 184 A.D.2d 581, lv denied 80 N.Y.2d 904; People v Suarez, 125 A.D.2d 350, lv denied 69 N.Y.2d 750).
The trial court delivered a charge that was scrupulous in apprising the jury of its role as the ultimate finder of the facts, and provided full and correct instructions relating to interested witnesses, both as to the testimony offered by defendant and that of the prosecution's witnesses.
Concur — Ellerin, J.P., Ross, Rubin and Nardelli, JJ.