PEOPLE v. RIVERA-LOPEZ

Defendant's challenge to the court's jury instructions concerning the caution it must exercise in its evaluation of an unavailable eyewitness's exculpatory hearsay statement (see, People v. Robinson, 89 N.Y.2d 648) is unpreserved and we decline to review it in the interest of justice. Were we to review this claim, we would find that to the extent that the court's generally appropriate instructions may have contained language that conveyed a skeptical view of the force of this evidence, any such error was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt, which included a detailed confession and audiotapes wherein defendant clearly admitted he was the victim's murderer.