People v. Toliver

OPINION OF THE COURT

Sullivan, J. P.

This appeal presents the question of whether the Trial Justice’s absence from the courtroom, without defendant’s consent, for brief periods during jury selection constitutes a per se ground for reversal.

Defendant was convicted, after a jury trial, of sodomizing a 13-year-old male in the Broadway-Lafayette/Bleeker Street subway station during the early morning hours of April 4, 1991. A bystander, waiting nearby for his wife, saw defendant, an older man, orally sodomizing the victim in a remote area of the station platform. Shortly thereafter, two police…