People v. Morales

Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Lebowitz, J.), rendered April 29, 1996, convicting him of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.

Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and a new trial is ordered.

The defendant contends, and the People correctly concede, that he was denied his right to a public trial because the Supreme Court excluded from the courtroom his attorney’s Legal Aid Society supervisor during the testimony of an undercover police officer.

When the defendant’s trial…