Opinion
March 11, 1996
Appeal from the County Court, Nassau County (Thorp, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
The defendant argues that he was deprived of a fair trial because the prosecutor exercised four racially motivated peremptory challenges against black venirepersons in violation of Batson v Kentucky ( 476 U.S. 79). However, the defendant failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that the race-neutral explanations proffered by the prosecutor were merely pretextual (see, People v Allen, 86 N.Y.2d 101; People v Hernandez, 75 N.Y.2d 350, affd 500 U.S. 352; People v Gooden, 220 A.D.2d 683; People v Waldo, 221 A.D.2d 390). Thus, the court did not err in dismissing the four venirepersons.
The defendant's challenge to the court's refusal to charge criminally negligent homicide as a lesser included offense of murder in the second degree is foreclosed by reason of the jury finding him guilty of murder in the second degree and its implicit rejection of the charged lesser-included offense of manslaughter in the second degree (see, People v Boettcher, 69 N.Y.2d 174; People v Broadie, 221 A.D.2d 352; People v Cruz,
191 A.D.2d 507; People v Rammelkamp, 167 A.D.2d 560). Ritter, J.P., Thompson, Pizzuto and Hart, JJ., concur.