Opinion
March 1, 1943.
Appeal from County Court of Queens County.
Judgment reversed on the law and a new trial ordered. After the defendant had admitted that he had pleaded guilty on a prior occasion to the crime of robbery in the third degree, the court, over objection and exception, permitted interrogations as to the manner of the commission of that crime and its type. Those details showed that it was a payroll robbery involving the use of an automobile and associates, just as was the situation in the case at bar. This proof tended to establish a propensity on the part of the defendant to commit that type of crime, using means similar to those here involved. This was error. ( People v. Kress, 284 N.Y. 452, 466; People v. Russell, 266 N.Y. 147; People v. Zackowitz, 254 N.Y. 192, 197; People v. Rosenthal, 289 N.Y. 482.) The charge of the court in respect of this prior conviction, limiting it in its effect to the credibility of the defendant, did not cure the error, but, on the contrary, tended to aggravate it, since the charge emphasized the nature, presumably the details, of the prior crime. Close, P.J., Hagarty, Carswell, Johnston and Adel, JJ., concur.