People v. Smith

—Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Rios, J.), rendered February 4, 1998, convicting him of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, assault in the second degree, and resisting arrest, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.

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

The trial court erred in denying the defendant’s challenge for cause to two prospective jurors. Where there is evidence that a prospective juror’s state of mind is likely to preclude him or her from rendering an impartial verdict…