Opinion
January 29, 1987
Appeal from the County Court of Chemung County (Danaher, Jr., J.).
Defendant, an inmate at Elmira Correctional Facility, was convicted of assault in the second degree (two counts) and promoting prison contraband in the first degree based upon a July 23, 1984 incident in which a fellow inmate was stabbed with a sharpened metal shank. On this appeal, defendant first maintains that the contraband conviction was invalid because the "Standards of Inmate Behavior" rulebook, which lists the items inmates are prohibited from possessing, was not timely filed with the Secretary of State as required by N.Y. Constitution, article IV, § 8. This argument has recently been considered and rejected by this court (People v. Simms, 124 A.D.2d 349; People v. Motley, 119 A.D.2d 57, lv granted 68 A.D.2d 919). We have examined defendant's further assertions of prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel and find them unavailing. The prosecutor's summation was clearly not so improper or inflammatory as to have deprived defendant of a fair trial (see, People v. Patterson, 88 A.D.2d 694, 695, affd 59 N.Y.2d 794). The record further confirms that defense counsel pursued appropriate pretrial measures and adequately presented a justification defense at trial. The representation provided was clearly meaningful (see, People v. Baldi, 54 N.Y.2d 137, 147). For these reasons, the judgment of conviction should be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed. Mahoney, P.J., Kane, Casey, Weiss and Levine, JJ., concur.