23 A.D.2d 697 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1965
Appeal by defendants from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County, rendered July 15, 1963 after a jury trial, convicting them of robbery in the first degree, grand larceny in the first degree and assault in the second degree, and imposing sentence. Judgment reversed on the law and the facts and a new trial granted. Defendants were convicted of robbing a seaman who complained that when he asked a bartender to call a taxi the defendants offered to drive him to his destination and then robbed him when he got into their car. Defendants’ counsel urged the court to have the bartender brought into court after he had ignored a subpoena served oil him. In view of complainant’s testimony that the bartender knew of defendants’ offer and said “it’s -okay”; and in view of the defendants’ claim that the bartender’s testimony would establish that complainant (who by his own account had consumed nine drinks in a few hours) was never in his bar until he