Case ID: ad2d_295/html/0165-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Donald Bastien, Appellant.
    [743 NYS2d 706]
   —Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Dorothy Cropper, J.), rendered February 29, 2000, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of murder in the second degree and two counts of robbery in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender, to an aggregate term of 32 years to life, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly exercised its discretion in declining to order a further competency hearing, since it reasonably concluded, based on the psychiatric report issued at the time of defendant’s most recent competency proceedings, and on its own observations of defendant, that he was not incapacitated (see. People v Morgan, 87 NY2d 878). The record of defendant’s various competency proceedings supports the conclusion that defendant was never psychotic. Rather, he was adept at feigning psychotic symptoms, a skill he had the opportunity to develop and hone during his long-standing history and repeated encounters with the criminal justice system. The information presented by defense counsel in support of his request for a new competency hearing was completely consistent with defendant’s demonstrated pattern of malingering (see, People v Williams, 282 AD2d 224, lv denied 96 NY2d 869). Furthermore, the record, including defendant’s responses to the court at the plea allocution, establishes that defendant’s plea was knowing, intelligent and voluntary, and unaffected by his purported mental illness (see, People v Alexander, 97 NY2d 482).

Defendant’s valid waiver of the right to appeal expressly encompassed his suppression and excessive sentence claims (see, People v Kemp, 94 NY2d 831). Accordingly, appellate review of each of those claims is foreclosed. In any event, both claims are without merit. Concur—Williams, P.J., Tom, Saxe, Friedman and Marlow, JJ. [See 170 Misc 2d 103.]