People v. Ferrara

Appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County, rendered June 1, 1978, convicting him of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. Judgment reversed, on the law and as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, and new trial ordered. On this appeal defendant claims that he was deprived of a fair trial by the prosecutor’s summation which (1) inflamed the jury by claiming the police failed to use electronic and photographic surveillance because to do so would risk death; (2) branded defendant as a…