Case ID: ad3d_127/html/0434-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Jesus Alejandro, Appellant.
    [4 NYS3d 514]—
   Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Gregory Carro, J.), rendered November 28, 2011, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of murder in the second degree, and sentencing him to a term of 23 years to life, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant’s challenge to the court’s jury instruction concerning the requirement of unanimity is unpreserved. We do not find any mode-of-proceedings error exempt from preservation requirements (see People v Thomas, 50 NY2d 467, 472 [1980]), and we decline to review this unpreserved claim in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we find no basis for reversal, because the court, which followed the Criminal Jury Instructions, sufficiently conveyed to the jury the principle that unanimity was required in order to reject defendant’s extreme emotional disturbance defense. The absence of an exception to the charge did not deprive defendant of effective assistance of counsel, since nothing in the instruction caused defendant any prejudice in light of the charge as a whole (see People v Parra, 58 AD3d 479 [1st Dept 2009], lv denied 12 NY3d 820 [2009]).

Concur — Friedman, J.P., Acosta, Moskowitz, Richter and Kapnick, JJ.