merely to prevent any tense courtroom exchanges from escalating. See id. Although this Court believes it would have been better practice for the trial court to have seated the deputy behind or in close proximity to the defendant, rather than at defense table, matters of security should be within the sound discretion of the trial judge. Moreover, given the precedents discussed above, had appellate counsel claimed on direct appeal that the presence of one uniformed deputy at the defense table was “inherently prejudicial,” the state court more than likely would have disagreed. See, e.g., People v. Terry; supra; People v. Riley, 292 A.D.2d 822, 738 N.Y.S.2d 793 (4th Dep’t 2002) (“To the extent that defendant contends that the mere presence of security personnel during hi 8 (2d Dep’t 1990) (<HOLDING>). In other words, there were no statements
holding statements made to a social worker to be testimonial because she was acting as a proxy for the police holding that the court did not err in concluding that a defendant was not in custody where he made statements to law enforcement officers in his own home was not physically restrained during the conversation never manifested an intent to terminate the interaction and the officers never indicated to the defendant that they had probable cause to arrest him holding that plea agreement with drug enforcement agency agent not enforceable when agent was not authorized by united states attorney to enter agreement holding that defendant was not entitled to specific performance of alleged cooperation agreement entered into with fbi agent who allegedly promised defendant he would not be prosecuted if he cooperated in making a statement where there was no evidence establishing that agent was authorized to make promises to obtain defendants cooperation holding that defendant not entitled to statutory notice of statements allegedly made by him to complainant who was a civilian and not a public servant or acting as an agent of law enforcement authorities