Opinion
2012-02-14
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Rodney MUNNERLYN, Defendant–Appellant.
Bernard V. Kleinman, White Plains, for appellant. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Deborah L. Morse of counsel), for respondent.
Bernard V. Kleinman, White Plains, for appellant. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Deborah L. Morse of counsel), for respondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Gregory Carro, J.), rendered March 9, 2009, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of two counts each of robbery in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender, to an aggregate term of 15 years, unanimously affirmed.
The court providently exercised its discretion in denying defendant's request to present expert testimony on eyewitness identification. The threshold inquiry in considering such an application is “deciding whether the case turns on the accuracy of eyewitness identifications and there is little or no corroborating evidence connecting the defendant to the crime” ( People v. Santiago, 17 N.Y.3d 661, 669, 934 N.Y.S.2d 746, 958 N.E.2d 874 [2011] ). Here, there were two strong eyewitness identifications, as well as many items of circumstantial evidence that, when viewed as a whole, provided substantial corroboration.