Opinion
214
February 14, 2002.
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Peter Benitez, J.), rendered June 18, 1998, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of burglary in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender to a term of 10 years, unanimously affirmed.
NHU P. NGUYEN, for respondent.
DAVID J. KLEM, for defendant-appellant.
Before: Nardelli, J.P., Tom, Andrias, Rubin, Buckley, JJ.
The verdict was not against the weight of the evidence. The fingerprint expert sufficiently stated the facts underlying his opinion that two latent fingerprints recovered from the burglarized premises matched those of defendant (see, People v. Jones, 73 N.Y.2d 427; People v. Lane, 195 A.D.2d 876, 879, lv denied 82 N.Y.2d 850).
Defendant's application pursuant to Batson v. Kentucky ( 476 U.S. 79) was properly denied. Defendant's current arguments in support of his claim that the race-neutral explanations offered by the prosecutor for the peremptory challenges at issue were pretextual are unpreserved (People v. Allen, 86 N.Y.2d 101, 111), and we decline to review them in the interest of justice. Were we to review these claims, we would find that the court properly found the explanations to be nonpretextual. The court's findings in this regard are entitled to great deference (see,People v. Hernandez, 75 N.Y.2d 350, affd 500 U.S. 352), particularly since the explanations primarily involved matters of demeanor, which the court had a unique opportunity to observe (see, People v. Martinez, 284 A.D.2d 157).
We perceive no basis for a reduction of sentence.
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.