People v. Ruiz
| Decision Date | 18 June 1990 |
| Citation | 162 A.D.2d 637,556 N.Y.S.2d 952 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Pedro/Felix RUIZ, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Ursula Bentele, Brooklyn (Luke Martland, on the brief), for appellant.
Charles J. Hynes, Dist. Atty., Brooklyn (Jay M. Cohen, Ann Bordley and Linda Breen, of counsel), for respondent.
Before KOOPER, J.P., and SULLIVAN, HARWOOD and BALLETTA, JJ.
MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.
Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Douglass, J.), rendered December 19, 1984, convicting him of murder in the second degree (two counts) and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (two counts), upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. The appeal brings up for review the denial, after a hearing, of that branch of the defendant's omnibus motion which was to suppress identification testimony.
ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.
On the night of August 20, 1983, the defendant and an accomplice robbed a grocery store after they had ordered its customers to lie down on the floor. When the store owner resisted, the accomplice fatally shot him. During the course of the holdup, three of the eyewitnesses were able to observe the defendant's partially covered face. In addition, during the course of a struggle with the deceased, the defendant's face covering fell down and two of the witnesses were able to see his entire face clearly.
The defendant's contentions that the photographic array and lineup procedures were rendered impermissibly suggestive by a scar on his face and injuries to his face are without merit (see, People v. Phillips, 145 A.D.2d 656, 536 N.Y.S.2d 171; People v. Williams, 118 A.D.2d 610, 499 N.Y.S.2d 453). All of the other participants in the array and lineup were approximately the same age, height, weight and build as the defendant and had similar skin tones and hairstyles (see, People v. Cunningham, 110 A.D.2d 708, 709, 487 N.Y.S.2d 609). In each procedure, at least one other individual had a facial scar above the eye and appeared bruised. Under the circumstances, the hearing court properly determined that the lineup and the in-court identifications of the defendant by the eyewitnesses were admissible.
Nor did the court's Sandoval ruling deprive the defendant of a fair trial (see, People v. Sandoval, 34 N.Y.2d 371, 357 N.Y.S.2d 849, 314 N.E.2d 413). The record clearly shows that the court gave thoughtful consideration to the problems presented by the length of the defendant's prior criminal record. Indeed, the court carefully weighed the probative worth of the defendant's prior criminal record against "the risk of unfair prejudice to the defendant, measured both by the impact of such evidence if it is admitted after his testimony and...
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