PEOPLE v. BROWN (2018)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Arlene D. Goldberg, J.), rendered February 26, 2015, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a weapon in the second and third degrees, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to an aggregate term of six years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant's legal sufficiency claim is unpreserved and we decline to review it in the interest of justice.  As an alternative holding, we reject it on the merits.  We also find that the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence (see People v. Danielson, 9 N.Y.3d 342, 348–349, 849 N.Y.S.2d 480, 880 N.E.2d 1 [2007] ).  Moreover, we find the evidence of defendant's guilt to be overwhelming.  There is no basis for disturbing the jury's credibility determinations.  The two people who had shared an apartment with defendant testified that the bedroom and locked safe where the weapons at issue were found were exclusively used by defendant, and their testimony was corroborated by other evidence.

Defense counsel's cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, suggesting that the police investigation was less than thorough because the police proceeded entirely on the basis of information from allegedly unreliable witnesses, created a misleading impression about the amount of information the police actually had.  Defendant thus opened the door to carefully limited evidence that defendant was named in the search warrant for the apartment, whose execution led to the recovery of the weapons.  Furthermore, the court thoroughly instructed the jury that this evidence was being received only to explain why the police went to the apartment and not as evidence of defendant's guilt.  Accordingly, we find no violation of defendant's right of confrontation (see Tennessee v. Street, 471 U.S. 409, 105 S.Ct. 2078, 85 L.Ed.2d 425 [1985];  People v. Reid, 19 N.Y.3d 382, 948 N.Y.S.2d 223, 971 N.E.2d 353 [2012] ).  In any event, any error was harmless (see People v. Crimmins, 36 N.Y.2d 230, 367 N.Y.S.2d 213, 326 N.E.2d 787 [1975] ).