PEOPLE v. AMATO (2025)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Ruth Pickholz, J.), rendered April 15, 2019, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of burglary in the second degree, and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to an aggregate term of five years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant's claim that the court's Sandoval ruling was an abuse of discretion (see People v. Hayes, 97 N.Y.2d 203, 207–208, 738 N.Y.S.2d 663, 764 N.E.2d 963 [2002]) is unpreserved, and we decline to review it in the interest of justice.  While defense counsel opposed the ruling advocated by the prosecution, which would have permitted inquiry into the names of the two felonies defendant was convicted of, and into the underlying facts of two of his petit larceny convictions, counsel did not object to the court's ultimate ruling, which allowed the People to ask defendant if he had 2 felony convictions and 13 misdemeanor convictions but prohibited further inquiry into the nature or underlying facts of the convictions (see People v. McAllister, 245 A.D.2d 184, 184, 665 N.Y.S.2d 897 [1st Dept. 1997], lv denied 91 N.Y.2d 894, 669 N.Y.S.2d 9, 691 N.E.2d 1035 [1998]).

As an alternative holding, we find that the court's ruling was not an abuse of discretion (see People v. Walker, 83 N.Y.2d 455, 611 N.Y.S.2d 118, 633 N.E.2d 472 [1994] [court's ruling was “sensitive[ ] to the particular prejudice that may result when a jury is made aware of the fact that the defendant has previously committed crimes that are similar to the charged crime”]).  In any event, any error would have been harmless.