Opinion
No. 22.
Argued January 15, 2009.
Decided February 11, 2009.
APPEAL, by permission of an Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the Second Judicial Department, entered March 11, 2008. The Appellate Division affirmed a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Michael J. Brennan, J.), which had convicted defendant, upon a jury verdict, of assault in the second degree, attempted sexual abuse in the first degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree and criminal mischief in the fourth degree. People v Williams, 49 AD3d 672, affirmed.
Lynn W.L. Fahey, New York City, and Jonathan Garvin for appellant.
Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Brooklyn ( Maria Park and Leonard Joblove of counsel), for respondent.
Before: Acting Chief Judge CIPARICK and Judges GRAFFEO, READ, SMITH, PIGOTT and JONES concur.
OPINION OF THE COURT
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.
We have repeatedly held that the extent to which the prosecution may use prior convictions to impeach a defendant's testimony "is `largely, if not completely' a discretionary determination for the trial courts and fact-reviewing intermediate appellate courts, and that generally no further review by this Court is warranted" ( People v Mattiace, 77 NY2d 269, 274, quoting People v Shields, 46 NY2d 764, 765). Here, Supreme Court's Sandoval ruling ( People v Sandoval, 34 NY2d 371) permitted the People to elicit from the defendant that he had one felony conviction and 45 misdemeanor convictions, but not to go into the underlying facts or circumstances of the convictions. We conclude here, as we did in People v Walker ( 83 NY2d 455, 458), that "the trial court might have been more discriminating," but that there is "no legal reason to upset the court's exercise of its discretion."
Order affirmed in a memorandum.