Opinion
June 25, 1990
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County, McInerney, J., Rohl, J.
Ordered that the judgments are affirmed.
The defendant claims that the court erred in admitting the expert's testimony that the substance the undercover officer purchased from the defendant was cocaine. The evidence was inadmissible, he argues, because there was no independent evidence of the known samples which the expert employed in determining that the substance was cocaine.
This claim has not been preserved for appellate review. In any event, the claim is meritless. Generally, the failure to establish the accuracy of the so-called "known standard" as a reliable norm requires the conclusion that a proper foundation has not been laid for an expert's analysis that the substance is cocaine, thereby rendering that testimony incompetent and inadmissible (see, People v. Wicks, 122 A.D.2d 239; People v Branton, 67 A.D.2d 664; People v. Miller, 57 A.D.2d 668). However, this court has repeatedly held that where the expert's testimony is premised in part upon tests that do not employ a known standard, the testimony is admissible (see, People v. Hushie, 145 A.D.2d 506; People v. Flores, 138 A.D.2d 512; People v Gonzalez, 127 A.D.2d 787; People v. Wicks, supra). Because the expert in the instant case relied in part upon tests that did not employ a known standard, his testimony was properly admitted.
We also reject the defendant's claim that the prosecution should have been required to call the confidential informant as its own witness. It is well settled that a prosecutor need not call a witness, "even an eyewitness, whose testimony his own investigation convinces him would be unreliable, cumulative or irrelevant" (People v. Andre W., 44 N.Y.2d 179, 184; see also, People v. Sapia, 41 N.Y.2d 160, 163, cert denied 434 U.S. 823; People v. Stridiron, 33 N.Y.2d 287, 292; People v. Pollak, 130 A.D.2d 911).
Further, we find that the court properly declined to charge the jury with the agency defense, as no reasonable view of the evidence supported such a charge (see, People v. Argibay, 45 N.Y.2d 45, cert denied sub nom. Hahn-DiGuiseppe v. New York, 439 U.S. 930; People v. Miano, 143 A.D.2d 777; People v. Cierzniewski, 141 A.D.2d 828).
We have considered the defendant's remaining contentions and find them to be without merit. Brown, J.P., Kooper, Eiber and O'Brien, JJ., concur.