PEOPLE v. MACHADO (2007)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Eduardo Padro, J.), rendered July 29, 2003, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third and fifth degrees, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to an aggregate term of 5 1/212 to 11 years, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied defendant's application pursuant to Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 [1986].   The prosecutor's stated reason for challenging one of the panelists at issue was that the panelist, unlike the other panelists, gave an equivocal answer to a question about his ability to be fair.   The record supports the court's finding that this nondiscriminatory reason was not pretextual, and this finding is entitled to great deference (see People v. Hernandez, 75 N.Y.2d 350, 553 N.Y.S.2d 85, 552 N.E.2d 621 [1990], affd. 500 U.S. 352, 111 S.Ct. 1859, 114 L.Ed.2d 395 [1991] ).   Defendant's argument with respect to a second panelist is unpreserved (see People v. Smocum, 99 N.Y.2d 418, 423-424, 757 N.Y.S.2d 239, 786 N.E.2d 1275 [2003] ), and we decline to review it in the interest of justice.   Were we to review this claim, we would similarly reject it.