Case ID: ad2d_194/html/0689-01.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 Randy Holston, Also Known as Randy Moore, Appellant.
    [599 NYS2d 1005]
   —Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Linakis, J.), rendered May 20, 1991, convicting him of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.

Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and a new trial is ordered. No questions of fact have been raised or considered.

We agree with the defendant’s contention that the trial court improvidently discharged a sworn juror without first conducting "a reasonably thorough inquiry and recitation on the record of the facts and reasons for invoking the statutory authorization of discharging and replacing [the] juror based on continued unavailability” (People v Page, 72 NY2d 69, 73; see, CPL 270.35; see, People v Davis, 178 AD2d 424, 425). Therefore, the defendant’s judgment of conviction must be reversed and a new trial ordered (People v Taylor, 154 AD2d 634, 635; affd 76 NY2d 873). Miller, J. P., Ritter, Copertino and Pizzuto, JJ., concur.