PEOPLE v. MADRIGAL (2004)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Ronald A. Zweibel, J.), rendered July 13, 1998, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first and third degrees, and sentencing him to concurrent terms of 15 years to life and 7 1/212 to 15 years, respectively, unanimously affirmed.

The court's Sandoval ruling balanced the appropriate factors and was a proper exercise of discretion (see People v. Hayes, 97 N.Y.2d 203, 738 N.Y.S.2d 663, 764 N.E.2d 963 [2002] ).   Defendant's claim that the proposed inquiry would have violated his right against self-incrimination (see People v. Betts, 70 N.Y.2d 289, 520 N.Y.S.2d 370, 514 N.E.2d 865 [1987] ) is unpreserved and we decline to review it in the interest of justice.   Were we to review this claim, we would find that the court permitted only a very limited inquiry that would not have called for defendant to incriminate himself as to his pending case.

The court properly denied defendant's request to introduce a deceased witness's grand jury testimony into evidence.   Defendant did not have a constitutional right to introduce this hearsay evidence under People v. Robinson, 89 N.Y.2d 648, 657 N.Y.S.2d 575, 679 N.E.2d 1055 [1997], because it was not critical to his defense (see People v. Cordon, 261 A.D.2d 278, 691 N.Y.S.2d 390 [1999], lv. denied 93 N.Y.2d 1016, 697 N.Y.S.2d 575, 719 N.E.2d 936 [1999] ).   This witness's daughter provided similar testimony to the grand jury, and was available to testify at trial, but defendant chose not to call her (see United States v. Inadi, 475 U.S. 387, 394, 106 S.Ct. 1121, 89 L.Ed.2d 390 [1986] [general preference for live testimony] ).