People v. Earl M.

Appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County, rendered April 13, 1976, adjudicating him a youthful offender, after a jury verdict convicting him of robbery in the second degree, and imposing sentence. Judgment reversed, on the law and as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, and new trial ordered. Although a trial court is granted wide latitude in controlling the conduct of a trial, here the court exercised its discretion improvidently by (1) curtailing the cross-examination of the complainant and (2) interrupting the questioning of witnesses by…