Opinion
October 13, 1992
Appeal from the County Court, Nassau County (Orenstein, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
We find that the hearing court properly denied suppression of the defendant's statements to the police since these statements were not the result of a custodial interrogation (see, People v Yukl, 25 N.Y.2d 585, cert denied 400 U.S. 851). The circumstances leading up to the defendant's inculpatory statements were entirely consistent with an investigatory rather than a custodial interview. Indeed, a reasonable person, innocent of any crime, would have believed that he was free to leave the presence of the police had he been in the defendant's position (see, People v Yukl, supra; People v Matus, 166 A.D.2d 464; People v Watson, 158 A.D.2d 731; People v Bailey, 140 A.D.2d 356; People v Oates, 104 A.D.2d 907). Nor were the defendant's statements to the police the product of impermissible coercion. Neither the characteristics of the defendant, nor the conduct of the law enforcement officials, nor the conditions of the interrogation, indicate that the defendant's statements were involuntarily made (see, Schneckloth v Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218; Clewis v Texas, 386 U.S. 707; People v Anderson, 42 N.Y.2d 35).
Contrary to the contention of the defendant, the trial court properly admitted photographs of the victim into evidence. The photographs were probative of the defendant's state of mind, corroborated expert medical testimony as to the victim's cause of death, and corroborated the defendant's own account of the murder. Further, the trial court balanced the photographs' probative value against their potential for prejudice by limiting the number of photographs admitted into evidence and by deleting certain immaterial portions of the photographs (see, People v Stevens, 76 N.Y.2d 833; People v Pobliner, 32 N.Y.2d 356; People v Miller, 170 A.D.2d 623). Bracken, J.P., Harwood, Balletta and Eiber, JJ., concur.