Opinion
10-20-2015
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Stanley TORRES, Defendant–Appellant.
Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Claudia Trupp of counsel), for appellant. Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (T. Charles Won of counsel), for respondent.
Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Claudia Trupp of counsel), for appellant.
Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (T. Charles Won of counsel), for respondent.
Opinion Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Michael Gross, J.), rendered August 6, 2013, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of manslaughter in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 25 years, unanimously affirmed.
The court properly declined to give a jury instruction regarding the voluntariness of defendant's videotaped statement, because there was insufficient evidence to present a factual dispute on the issue (see People v. Medina, 93 A.D.3d 459, 939 N.Y.S.2d 455 [1st Dept.2015], lv. denied 19 N.Y.3d 999, 951 N.Y.S.2d 475, 975 N.E.2d 921 [2012] ). The evidence cited by defendant, such as his use of drugs the night before his late afternoon interrogation, failed to raise such a dispute or support competing inferences.
The court properly excluded a toxicology report of defendant's blood, taken during his postarrest incarceration at Riker's Island, because defendant did not lay a proper foundation to establish the report's relevance (see People v. Bynum, 33 A.D.3d 376, 822 N.Y.S.2d 74 [1st Dept.2006], lv. denied 7 N.Y.3d 924, 827 N.Y.S.2d 693, 860 N.E.2d 995 [2006] ). Defendant's remaining evidentiary arguments are unpreserved and we decline to review them in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we reject them on the merits.
We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence.
GONZALEZ, P.J., MAZZARELLI, RICHTER, MANZANET–DANIELS, JJ., concur.