Opinion
July 1, 1974
On this appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County, rendered August 11, 1971, convicting him of manslaughter in the first degree, upon a guilty plea, and imposing sentence (the appeal brought up for review a denial of pretrial motions to suppress certain physical evidence, namely, a cufflink, and identification evidence), this court, on December 31, 1973, remanded the case to Criminal Term for a determination "as to whether the improper showup identification tainted the identification or whether the identification was based solely upon the on-the-scene observations" and ordered the appeal held in abeyance in the interim, except that it was also held that the motion to suppress the cufflink should have been granted ( People v. Velez, 43 A.D.2d 745). Since then Criminal Term has made a determination that the in-court identification was untainted and based upon an independent source — the victim's observations of defendant at the time of the crime. Judgment affirmed. There is a rational basis for Criminal Term's determination on the remand. Gulotta, P.J., Latham, Shapiro, Christ and Benjamin, JJ., concur.