Opinion
May 15, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Pincus, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
The trial court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in restricting the defendant's cross-examination of the arresting officer with respect to "spectators" at the scene of the defendant's arrest, nor with regard to whether the same officer had ordered a fingerprint check of the weapon that he had witnessed the defendant discard, as both lines of inquiry, in addition to being without foundation, would have caused the jury to speculate about irrelevant matters and matters not in evidence (see, e.g., People v Duncan, 46 N.Y.2d 74, 80-81; People v Hendricks, 214 A.D.2d 584; People v Thomas, 141 A.D.2d 782, 783). In any event, we note that the defendant was able to present to the jury his theory that without additional eyewitnesses and fingerprint evidence, there was insufficient proof to convict him of criminal possession of a weapon (see, e.g., People v Piazza, 48 N.Y.2d 151, 164-165). Furthermore, the court expressly instructed the jury to consider whether there was a lack of evidence, and whether a reasonable doubt could spring from such a lack (cf., People v Rodriguez, 141 A.D.2d 382, 384).
Although in its Allen charge (Allen v United States, 164 U.S. 492) the court did not expressly instruct that each juror was entitled to maintain "conscientiously held opinions", the charge as a whole was balanced, proper, and encouraging rather than coercive (see, e.g., People v Ford, 78 N.Y.2d 878, 880; People v Pagan, 45 N.Y.2d 725, 726-727). At no point did the court urge that a dissenting juror abandon his or her own conviction and join in the opinion of others, attempt to shame the jurors into reaching a verdict, or endeavor to compel the jurors to agree upon a particular result (see, e.g., People v Fleury, 177 A.D.2d 504, 504-505; People v Austin, 168 A.D.2d 502, 502-503). Bracken, J.P., Pizzuto, Santucci and Friedmann, JJ., concur.