People v. Bowen
| Decision Date | 09 November 1987 |
| Citation | 134 A.D.2d 356,520 N.Y.S.2d 834 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Michelle BOWEN, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Philip L. Weinstein, New York City (Joel Atlas, of counsel), for appellant.
Elizabeth Holtzman, Dist. Atty., Brooklyn (Barbara D. Underwood, Richard J. Cutler and Carol Teague Schwartzkopf, of counsel), for respondent.
Before MANGANO, J.P., and BROWN, LAWRENCE and SPATT, JJ.
MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.
Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Broomer, J.), rendered January 30, 1986, convicting her of grand larceny in the second degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.
ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.
On the instant appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court committed various errors in its charge to the jury. We disagree. Specifically, the defendant initially argues that the trial court gave an improper "Allen " charge, before the jury even retired for deliberations, which carried a great potential to coerce jurors holding a minority position. Insofar as the court merely instructed the jurors to listen to each other's arguments with open minds, to make their decisions based on a reasonable, rather than emotional, evaluation of the evidenc and, to attempt to come to a unanimous verdict, one way or the other, we find no impropriety. The instructions were essentially neutral, and did not coerce the jurors to reach a certain verdict, or any verdict (see, People v. Pagan, 45 N.Y.2d 725, 408 N.Y.S.2d 473, 380 N.E.2d 299; People v. Eley, 121 A.D.2d 462, 503 N.Y.S.2d 423; lv. denied 68 N.Y.2d 769, 506 N.Y.S.2d 1053, 498 N.E.2d 155; People v. Hardy, 109 A.D.2d 802, 486 N.Y.S.2d 314). Moreover, it was entirely proper for the court to include such instructions in its initial charge to the jury (see, People v. Ali, 47 N.Y.2d 920, 419 N.Y.S.2d 487, 393 N.E.2d 481), thereby directing the instruction at the jury in general without singling out one or two jurors.
The defendant next argues that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that the defendant's confession to the complainant could be considered as evidence if the statements were found to have been voluntarily made, without also instructing that the statements must be found to be truthful as well. In support of this argument, the defendant relies solely on the sample jury instruction set forth in 1 CJI(NY) 11.01, which incorporates an instruction on truthfulness into the charge on voluntariness of a confession. While it is true that a statement admitting guilt which is found to be voluntary must be evaluated by the jury for its truthfulness, there...
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