People v. Lucas
| Decision Date | 19 June 1990 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Ronnie LUCAS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
M.S. Brill, for respondent.
A. Feldman, for defendant-appellant.
Before KUPFERMAN, J.P., and SULLIVAN, ROSENBERGER, KASSAL and SMITH, JJ.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Richard Lowe, J.), rendered March 31, 1988, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to an indeterminate term of imprisonment of from four and one-half to nine years, unanimously affirmed.
Defendant was arrested in a "buy and bust" operation as the "steerer" who aided Santiago Cruz in selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer. The officer testified that he said to defendant "[a]ny crack doing?" whereupon defendant responded "[w]hat do you want?". The officer then replied "I'm looking for two nice ones." Defendant told the officer to wait and approached Cruz who gave defendant three vials with pink caps. Defendant gave two of the vials to the officer in exchange for $20 in pre-recorded buy money, kept one of the vials himself, and then told the officer "[n]ext time see me, I'm always around."
Defendant contends that the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate that he aided Cruz in selling drugs and instead established that he was merely an agent of the buyer, that he received no "profit" for his assistance, and that he "merely received a vial of crack to support his drug habit." We disagree. The facts in this case represent the typical scenario of a street sale of drugs, where one person deals directly with the buyer and the other holds the drug supply. In any event, "whether the defendant was a seller, or merely a purchaser doing a favor for a friend, is generally a factual question for the jury to resolve ... [citations omitted]" (People v. Lam Lek Chong, 45 N.Y.2d 64, 74, 407 N.Y.S.2d 674, 379 N.E.2d 200, cert. denied, 439 U.S. 935, 99 S.Ct. 330, 58 L.Ed.2d 331). "... [B]asically the jury must rely on its own common sense and experience to determine whether, under the circumstances, the defendant was in fact accommodating a friend or was simply a streetwise peddler attempting to avoid the penalties for sale." (id., at p. 75, 407 N.Y.S.2d 674, 379 N.E.2d 200). The evidence was sufficient to support the jury's conclusion that defendan...
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