Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (John Collins, J.), rendered July 31, 1997, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of assault in the second degree, and sentencing her to a term of 2 to 6 years, unanimously affirmed.
The court properly exercised its discretion in denying defendant’s application to remove two jurors who had allegedly been conversing and laughing during defendant’s testimony. Defendant’s claim that the court should have inquired into the fitness of the jurors to continue serving is unpreserved for appellate review since defendant failed to request any inquiry and did not object to the court’s reliance on its own observations (see, People v Gonzalez,
The restrictions placed by the court on defendant’s cross-examination of a police witness at the hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress a statement could not have affected the outcome of the hearing. In any event, defendant’s statement was largely exculpatory and duplicative of defendant’s own trial testimony (see, People v Benjamin,
