Case ID: ad2d_268/html/0255-02.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 Manuel Gonzalez, Appellant.
    [701 NYS2d 365]
   —Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Joan Sudolnik, J.), rendered February 11, 1998, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 4V2 to 9 years, unanimously affirmed.

The trial court properly admitted testimony that the defendont and his two co-defendants forced the undercover officer to sample the heroin he had purchased in order to prove that he was not a police officer. The testimony was admissible because it completed the narrative of the sale and tended to prove that defendant was a participant in the sale (see, People v Alvino, 71 NY2d 233).

The court’s Sandoval ruling was an appropriate exercise of discretion that balanced the proper factors (see, People v Walker, 83 NY2d 455, 458-459; People v Pavao, 59 NY2d 282, 292). Concur—Williams, J. P., Mazzarelli, Wallach, Andrias and Friedman, JJ.