Opinion
June 29, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Franklin Weissberg, J.).
Defendant did not have a statutory or constitutional right to be present at the court's announcement of its competency determination, any such right to be present having been satisfied by his attendance at the underlying hearings ( People v Williams, 85 N.Y.2d 945). Nor is there merit to defendant's claim that the court interfered with his right to a nonjury trial when, in seeking to assure that any waiver of the right to a jury trial, merely suggested by defendant as a possibility he was considering, would be knowing and voluntary, the court advised defendant to keep in mind that it had already found the testimony of defendant's psychiatrists to be unpersuasive in the context of the competency proceedings.
Concur — Rosenberger, J.P., Kupferman, Nardelli and Mazzarelli, JJ.