Title: The People v. Stephen Price

State: new-york

Issuer: New York Appellate Court

Document:

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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 7  
The People &c.,
            Appellant,
        v.
Stephen Price,
            Respondent.
Thomas C. Costello, for appellant.
Christopher B. Abbott, for respondent.
LIPPMAN, Chief Judge:
At issue is whether the prosecution may rely on the
"exceptional circumstances" exclusion contained within CPL
30.30(4)(g) to avoid dismissal of defendant's indictment on
speedy trial grounds.  We hold, as the Appellate Division did
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No. 7
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below, that the exclusion does not apply under the circumstances
presented here.   
On February 2, 2006, defendant was arraigned in Suffolk
County on a felony complaint charging him with attempted
disseminating indecent material to minors in the first degree. 
Defendant allegedly engaged in explicit, sexually motivated
internet conversations with an undercover police officer posing
as a 14-year-old girl.  The communication, however, did not
involve the transmission of any sexual images. 
Nearly six months later, on July 25, 2006, the Second
Department held in People v Kozlow (31 AD3d 788 [2006], revd 8
NY3d 544 [2007]) that a defendant may not be convicted of the
above-named crime where the communications upon which the
conviction is sought do not include sexual images.  In light of
the decision in Kozlow, the District Attorney's office
prosecuting this case -- which is located within the Second
Department -- determined that defendant could not be indicted. 
The criminal complaint against defendant was, however, left
pending.  
On April 26, 2007, this Court reversed the Second
Department in Kozlow and held that a defendant charged with the
subject crime may properly be convicted of that crime "even
though his communications contained no nude or sexual images" (8
NY3d at 556).  Believing that our decision in Kozlow removed any
barrier to the prosecution of defendant in this case, the People
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presented their case to the grand jury, which returned an
indictment against defendant on May 30, 2007.  Defendant was
arraigned on that indictment on June 14, 2007, more than 16
months after he was initially arraigned on the felony complaint. 
Defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on speedy
trial grounds.  The People opposed the motion, arguing that the
interval between the Second Department's decision in Kozlow and
this Court's reversal of Kozlow  -- a total of 275 days -- should
be excluded from the speedy trial calculation pursuant to the
"exceptional circumstances" provision of CPL 30.30(4)(g). 
Supreme Court granted defendant's motion, and the Appellate
Division, in the order now before us by leave of a Judge of this
Court, affirmed (61 AD3d 127 [2d Dept 2009]). 
CPL 30.30 (1)(a) requires the People to be ready for
trial within six months of the commencement of a criminal action
in which a felony is charged.  The failure to declare readiness
within the statutory time limit will result in dismissal of the
prosecution, unless the People can demonstrate that certain time
periods should be excluded.  CPL 30.30 (4) sets forth certain
"periods [that] must be excluded," and includes a catch-all
provision for
"other periods of delay occasioned by
exceptional circumstances, including but not
limited to, the period of delay resulting
from a continuance granted at the request of
a district attorney if (i) the continuance is
granted because of the unavailability of
evidence material to the people's case, when
the district attorney has exercised due
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No. 7
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diligence to obtain such evidence and there
are reasonable grounds to believe that such
evidence will become available in a
reasonable period; or (ii) the continuance is
granted to allow the district attorney
additional time to prepare the people's case
and additional time is justified by the
exceptional circumstances of the case."
(CPL 30.30 [4] [g]).  The parties here do not dispute that the
People were not ready for trial within the six-month statutory
limitation unless the period between the Second Department's
decision in Kozlow and this Court's reversal in that case is
deemed an "exceptional circumstance."  
We have observed that "[t]here is no precise 
definition of what constitutes an exceptional circumstance under
CPL 30.30 (4)(g)," since it is impossible to "anticipate every
situation that might warrant tolling of the speedy trial time
period" (People v Smietana, 98 NY2d 336, 341 [2002]).  It is
clear, however, that the range of the term's application is
limited by the dominant legislative intent informing CPL 30.30,
namely, to discourage prosecutorial inaction (see People v
Sinistaj, 67 NY2d 236, 239 [1986]; People v Worley, 66 NY2d 523,
527 [1985]).  Mindful of this principal underlying purpose, we
have allowed application of the exclusion only when the People
for practical reasons beyond their control cannot proceed with a
legally viable prosecution (see e.g. People v Washington, 43 
NY2d 772 [1977]; People v Zirpola, 57 NY2d 706, 708 [1982]). 
Moreover, we note that, although not required, the statute's 
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No. 7
1  The People contend that this course of action was
impossible based on our decision in People v Osgood (52 NY2d 37
[1980]).  In Osgood, the felony complaint was dismissed for
failure to prosecute, but the prosecutor later obtained an
indictment for the same offenses charged in the felony complaint. 
We held that the commencement for speedy trial purposes related
back to the filing of the original complaint, even though it had
been dismissed.  If that rule applied in this case, a subsequent
indictment would have been untimely.  However, the facts of
Osgood are distinguishable, and the prosecutor here could have
argued that it should not apply to these facts.  That issue could
then have been litigated through the appellate process. We have
no occasion to address the issue here, however, where it is not
properly presented.  
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text contemplates that the prosecutor will seek a continuance
from the court where the circumstances make it impossible to
proceed.  The Legislature thus envisioned an approach by which
the prosecutor could secure a prior judicial ruling as to
exceptional circumstances rather than ask a court to apply the
exclusion after the fact.  This would ensure that the defendant
is kept abreast of the status of his case and the charges 
pending against him.   
Here, as the People concede, after the Appellate
Division's decision in Kozlow, there could have been no legal
basis to proceed further against defendant.  The criminal
complaint could have been withdrawn at that juncture. 
Subsequently, after this Court's reversal in Kozlow, when the
prosecution again became legally viable, the People could have
attempted to re-commence the prosecution.1
Although the circumstances presented here are unusual,
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No. 7
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they are not exceptional within the meaning of CPL 30.30(4)(g).
What is involved in the final analysis is prosecutorial inaction
resulting in the prolonged pendency of a criminal complaint
without any judicial intervention and any notification to
defendant of the status of the proceeding.  This is precisely 
the sort of conduct the Legislature intended to curb when it
enacted CPL 30.30. 
 Application of the exclusion under these 
circumstances would permit a scenario in which a criminal
complaint could pend for an open-ended and potentially lengthy
period on the mere prospect that a change in the law might 
render it again viable.  As we stated in People v Cortes (80 
NY2d 201 [1992]), "[l]egal rulings are routine events in 
criminal trials.  The fact that a particular ruling may be
erroneous does not by itself transform that ruling into an
'exceptional circumstance'" (id. at 211-212).  Although 
Cortes is factually distinguishable from this case because the
People could have resubmitted the case to the Grand Jury or
appealed the order dismissing the indictment, the language of
that decision is nonetheless persuasive in this context
(see Smietana, 98 NY2d at 343 [Kaye, Ch. J., dissenting] 
[stating that the above quoted language from Cortes "should be
given (its) plain meaning"]).    
To be sure, the People here were not in control of the
ultimate circumstance that prevented them from being unable to
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proceed to trial -- the erroneous Appellate Division decision in
Kozlow.  They did, however, have control over defendant's
criminal complaint and, despite binding case law indicating that
there was no legal basis to proceed against defendant for
commission of the offense charged, allowed the charge to stand. 
The People complain that, if we do not find exceptional
circumstances in this case, defendant, and others similarly
situated, will enjoy immunity from prosecution based on an
erroneous Appellate Division decision.  While the result of our
holding may in that respect be unfortunate, we have previously
acknowledged that, in the context of speedy trial cases, our
decisions often "transcend[] the issue of a particular
defendant's guilt or the disposition of a particular case"
(People v Prosser, 309 NY 353, 360 [1955] [internal brackets and
quotation marks omitted]).     
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be affirmed.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *  * 
Order affirmed.  Opinion by Chief Judge Lippman.  Judges
Ciparick, Graffeo, Read, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur.
Decided February 11, 2010