Opinion
November 7, 1994
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Curci, 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 undercover police officers' testimony. At the Hinton hearings (see, People v. Hinton, 31 N.Y.2d 71, cert denied 410 U.S. 911), the undercover officers' testimony contained particularized references to the work the officers had been doing and would continue to do, including references to the existence of open cases, to numerous threats against their safety that they had received while doing undercover work, and to the very real danger that those threats might be realized if their identities were to become public (see, People v. Martinez, 82 N.Y.2d 436, 443; People v. Reece, 204 A.D.2d 495). A further link had been made between each officer's fear for his safety and his opencourt testimony by virtue of the site of the defendant's trial, in which approximately 100 other drug cases were then pending. Based on these factors, the trial court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in closing the courtroom during the undercover officers' testimony (see, People v. Reece, supra; cf., People v. Martinez, 82 N.Y.2d 436, 443, supra). Sullivan, J.P., Ritter, Pizzuto and Hart, JJ., concur.