PEOPLE v. LARA (2007)

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York.

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Miguel LARA, Defendant-Appellant.

Decided: October 18, 2007

NARDELLI, J.P., GONZALEZ, SWEENY, McGUIRE, KAVANAGH, JJ.

Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Carl S. Kaplan of counsel), for appellant. Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Frank Glaser of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (John Cataldo, J.), rendered May 6, 2005, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 8 years, unanimously affirmed.

After conducting a hearing, the court properly denied defendant's CPL 330.30(2) motion to set aside the verdict on the ground of juror misconduct. Under all the circumstances of the case, the weather information that a juror improperly collected from the Internet was immaterial, and did not create a substantial risk of prejudice (see People v. Maragh, 94 N.Y.2d 569, 574, 708 N.Y.S.2d 44, 729 N.E.2d 701 [2000] ). Likewise, the court properly exercised its discretion in denying defendant's request that additional jurors be brought back to court for testimony at the hearing.

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