Opinion
04-28-2016
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Jeffrey WILSON, Defendant–Appellant.
Jeffrey Wilson appellant pro se. Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Abigail Everett of counsel), for appellant. Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (Clara H. Salzberg of counsel), for respondent.
Jeffrey Wilson appellant pro se.
Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Abigail Everett of counsel), for appellant.
Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (Clara H. Salzberg of counsel), for respondent.
Opinion
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Martin Marcus, J. at jury trial, Barbara F. Newman, J. at sentencing), rendered July 23, 2013, convicting defendant of robbery in the first degree and attempted assault in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender, to an aggregate term of 17 years, unanimously affirmed.
The court properly exercised its discretion in replacing absent jurors in two instances. A court has broad discretion to replace a juror whose absence would cause a delay of two hours (People v. Jeanty, 94 N.Y.2d 507, 515–517, 706 N.Y.S.2d 683, 727 N.E.2d 1237 [2000]; CPL 270.35[2][a] ). Here, each juror's absence would have far exceeded two hours, and would have unduly disrupted a trial already plagued by delays. The court also properly exercised its discretion in charging the jury, over defense counsel's objection, that no adverse inference should be drawn from defendant's exercise of his right not to be present. Defendant chose to absent himself late in the trial, and the court properly determined that the circumstances of the case called for such an instruction in order to explain why the trial was continuing notwithstanding defendant's absence, after he had been absent on the prior day due to illness (see People v. Brisbane, 205 A.D.2d 358, 613 N.Y.S.2d 368 [1st Dept.1994], lv. denied 84 N.Y.2d 933, 621 N.Y.S.2d 530, 645 N.E.2d 1230 [1994] ). Defendant's claim of potential prejudice is speculative.
We have considered and rejected defendant's pro se claims. TOM, J.P., MAZZARELLI, FRIEDMAN, RICHTER, KAHN, JJ., concur.