Opinion
December 19, 1994
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Corrado, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
The court did not deprive the defendant of his right to a public trial when it closed the courtroom during the testimony of undercover police officers. During the Hinton hearings (see, People v Hinton, 31 N.Y.2d 71, cert denied 410 U.S. 911), the undercover officers testified that they had been involved with undercover operations in the vicinity of the defendant's arrest at a specified address in Jamaica, Queens, and continued to work in that area. Both officers further testified that their safety and the safety of fellow police officers, as well as the integrity of ongoing investigations in the vicinity of the defendant's arrest, would be jeopardized if their identities were disclosed. Thus, a sufficient link was established between the officers' concern for their safety and their open-court testimony, and the trial court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in closing the courtroom (see, People v Hosien, 204 A.D.2d 658; People v Skinner, 204 A.D.2d 664; People v Thompson, 202 A.D.2d 456; cf., People v Martinez, 82 N.Y.2d 436).
The sentence imposed did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment (see, People v Thompson, 83 N.Y.2d 477; People v Brown, 198 A.D.2d 424; People v Wilson, 190 A.D.2d 835) and, under the circumstances of this case, was neither harsh nor excessive (see, People v Suitte, 90 A.D.2d 80). Joy, J.P., Friedmann, Krausman and Florio, JJ., concur.