Title: The People v. Luis Feliciano

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. 82  
The People &c.,
            Respondent,
        v.
Luis Feliciano,
            Appellant.
Joseph Lee Matalon, for appellant.
Danielle D. McIntosh, for respondent.
READ, J.:
On April 14, 1992, County Court in Greene County
imposed a split sentence of six months in jail and five years of
probation on defendant Luis Feliciano in exchange for a plea of
guilty to a felony drug charge.  After July 1, 1992, however, he
stopped appearing for mandated weekly appointments with his
probation officer, who received a report that defendant had fled
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No. 82
New York for Puerto Rico.  The probation officer investigated
this information and ultimately filed a violation of probation
(VOP) complaint with County Court on July 20, 1992, alleging that
defendant had "absconded . . . by leaving for Puerto Rico without
[his probation officer's] permission on 7/4/92."  County Court
declared defendant to be delinquent and issued an arrest warrant
that same day (see CPL 410.30 [declaration of delinquency];
410.40 [2] [warrant]; Penal Law § 65.15 [2] [providing that
declaration of delinquency tolls probationary sentence until
disposition of VOP complaint]).
In 2000, defendant was arrested in Pennsylvania for
shooting his pregnant wife with a rifle and killing her.  He was
convicted in 2001 of involuntary manslaughter and a related
weapon offense, and sentenced to consecutive prison terms of two
and one-half to five years and two to four years, respectively,
for these crimes.  The Pennsylvania convictions caused the
probation officer to discover defendant's whereabouts during the
course of a periodic search of criminal records.  On February 14,
2002, he lodged a detainer1 with the Pennsylvania prison where
defendant was incarcerated.
Defendant wrote County Court on July 8, 2002, declaring
1The United States Supreme Court has defined a detainer as
"a request filed by a criminal justice agency with the
institution in which a prisoner is incarcerated, asking the
institution either to hold the prisoner for the agency or to
notify the agency when release of the prisoner is imminent"
(Carchman v Nash, 473 US 716, 719 [1985]).
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No. 82
that he was "available for disposition" of the pending VOP
complaint, and warning that he "intend[ed] to have [the] charges
dismissed" if they were not "disposed in a timely manner . . .
consistent with the laws governing speedy trial in New York." 
Defendant added that the detainer would "hamper any attempts that
[he] might . . . make for pre-release programming . . . in
Pennsylvania, thus making it necessary for [him] to have it dealt
with as soon as possible."   
On July 19, 2002, a week after he received defendant's
letter, County Court issued a memorandum to the Greene County
probation department, district attorney and public defender,
attaching the letter.  The Judge noted that a VOP hearing was not
subject to statutory speedy trial rules; however, citing CPL
410.30, he scheduled an appearance for August 20, 2002 "in the
interest of taking prompt, reasonable and appropriate action to
cause defendant to appear and answer the pending Declaration of
Delinquency."  County Court asked the district attorney to "take
appropriate action to ensure Defendant's presence"; and
instructed everyone to be prepared for a revocation hearing on
August 20th, if necessary.
On July 24, 2002, the district attorney informed County
Court that arranging for defendant's extradition would be
difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish: the district
attorney had spoken with the State's extradition coordinator, who
told him there was no "normal mechanism" to obtain defendant's
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No. 82
attendance in County Court because the interstate agreement on
detainers was "inapplicable."  She advised that "normally
extraditions would take place when a defendant [had] completed
his prison sentence outside of New York State whereupon he would
be made available for pickup and transport to a New York State
Court."
As related by the district attorney, the extradition
coordinator went on to say that, having handled over 3,000 cases
in her five-year tenure, she had "never attempted an extradition
of an out-of-state prisoner who [had] not completed his sentence
to respond to probation violation charges in New York State," and
that the "only way she could think of" to do this was an
agreement between the Governors of New York and Pennsylvania. 
She suggested that "special circumstances would have to exist and
be alleged" and that the Governor's Counsel "would be
questioning" why an exception to the usual practice should be
made.  She also observed that the Governor's decision whether to
proceed in this fashion "would be totally discretionary," and
that New York "would have no control over whether the
Pennsylvania Governor would exercise his discretion in entering
into such an agreement."
Finally, the district attorney pointed out to County
Court that waiting to extradite defendant would save the County
the expense of a round trip.  In light of the complications
presented by defendant's out-of-state incarceration, the district
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No. 82
attorney "request[ed] that the defendant's extradition . . . take
place at the conclusion of his service of his Pennsylvania
sentence rather than at the present time."
One day later, the Judge canceled the August 20th
hearing in view of "the difficulties involved in attempting to
produce [defendant], as well as the uncertainty as to whether
such arrangement would be approved by the Governors of both
Pennsylvania and New York."  He determined that the VOP complaint
would be "dealt with . . . at some time in the future upon
[defendant's] release from the Pennsylvania Correctional System."
On January 14, 2003, defendant wrote County Court,
imploring the Judge to facilitate disposition of the VOP
complaint.  On January 21, 2003, the Judge responded that he had
"declined to schedule an appearance on the pending [VOP] prior to
[defendant's] release from the Pennsylvania Correctional System" 
because of "uncertainty as to whether an extradition arrangement
would even be approved by the Governors of Pennsylvania and New
York"; and that there was "no reason to deviate from this prior
determination." 
On June 2, 2003, defendant filed a pro se motion in
County Court.  He complained about the risk of double jeopardy;
he conceded that he was "guilty on this [VOP]," and asked the
court "to fix this legal matter."  County Court held a hearing on
June 24, 2003, which was attended by the public defender, the
district attorney and defendant's probation officer.  When the
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No. 82
Judge asked if there was any "consensus between the People and
the defense counsel in regard to the issues . . . before the
Court," the public defender responded that
"for due process purposes, the defendant ought to be
brought back as expeditiously as possible for the
purposes of addressing the issue of the [VOP] and
closing that case once and for all, as opposed to
allowing the case to linger for years until some day
the defendant shall complete a prison term in the State
of Pennsylvania."
The district attorney indicated that the People opposed
defendant's production "at this time"; he suggested that the
matter was not "ripe" until defendant was about to be released
from the Pennsylvania prison.  When the Judge asked for a
specific date, the probation officer replied that defendant's
earliest and maximum release dates in Pennsylvania were January
11, 2005 and July 11, 2009, respectively.  The probation officer
also observed that "one of the other concerns" in retrieving
defendant for a VOP hearing before he completed his prison term
in Pennsylvania was the "procedural nightmare and unnecessary
travel."
At the end of the hearing, the Judge again concluded
that defendant should be returned "at the finish of his
Pennsylvania sentence."  He issued a written decision and order
to this effect, dated June 27, 2003, in which he also rejected
what he understood to be defendant's argument that "double
jeopardy prohibit[ed] [County] Court from sentencing him to a
prison term for the same crime for which he was previously
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No. 82
sentenced to a term of probation."
In advance of defendant's scheduled release from prison
to a halfway house, Pennsylvania officials notified the probation
officer and arrangements were made to return defendant to Greene
County.  On May 24, 2007, the warrant was executed and a hearing
was held in County Court, after which defendant was committed to
the sheriff's custody without bail (see CPL 410.60 [reasonable-
cause hearing]).  At this hearing, defense counsel informed the
Judge that his client was "requesting that the time he served in
prison in Pennsylvania [be] concurrent to the offense here in New
York."  Both the probation officer and the district attorney made
clear that this proposal was unacceptable, and that the People
would seek defendant's incarceration for 15 years.  On May 24,
2007, the probation officer also amended the VOP complaint by
adding a second count relating to the Pennsylvania crimes, and on
May 29, 2007, defendant was arraigned again.
A revocation hearing was held on May 31, 2007; at its
conclusion, County Court found that defendant had violated
several of the general conditions of his probation by absconding
and by committing the crimes in Pennsylvania (see CPL 410.70
[probation-revocation hearing]).  On June 5, 2007, the Judge
revoked the probation portion of the sentence imposed on
defendant in 1992, and re-sentenced him to an indeterminate term
of five to 15 years in prison, which was the sentence specified
by the Penal Law at the time defendant committed the drug felony
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No. 82
to which he pleaded guilty (see CPL 410.70 [5]).  Defendant
appealed, and the Appellate Division affirmed (54 AD3d 1131 [3rd
Dept 2008]).
Defendant then sought post-conviction relief by way of
two CPL 440.20 motions to set aside his sentence, both brought
pro se.  In his first motion, made in November 2008, defendant
contended that County Court lost jurisdiction to adjudicate him
in violation of probation because of an unexplained 15-year delay
in producing him to answer the declaration of delinquency, citing
People v Horvath (37 AD3d 33 [2d Dept 2006]).  In a decision and
order dated January 21, 2009, County Court denied the motion in
its entirety; specifically, the Judge ruled that defendant's
objection to timeliness was unpreserved because it was not raised
at the VOP hearing.  On April 6, 2009, the Appellate Division
denied defendant permission to appeal (2009 NY Slip Op 69279 [U]
[3d Dept 2009]).
In his second CPL 440.20 motion, made in March 2009,
defendant raised an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim under
State and federal law on account of defense counsel's failure to
raise the issue of delay at the VOP hearing.  On May 4, 2009,
County Court denied this motion, ruling in particular that
defendant's ineffective-assistance claim was "the proper subject
of [his] direct appeal, not a CPL 440 motion."  On June 30, 2009,
the Appellate Division denied defendant permission to appeal
(2009 NY Slip Op 77128 [U] [3d Dept 2009]). 
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No. 82
In September 2009, defendant pro se applied to the
Appellate Division for a writ of error coram nobis.  He claimed
that appellate counsel's representation was deficient because he
did not fault defense counsel for failing to argue at the VOP
hearing that "the six[-]year delay by the DA in moving to
adjudicate the [VOP] amounted to a loss of jurisdiction [such
that] the Court below would have been statutorily compelled to
dismiss the violation and the case."  The Appellate Division
denied the application (2009 NY Slip Op 89246 [U] [3d Dept
2009]).  A Judge of this Court subsequently granted defendant
leave to appeal (14 NY3d 840 [2010]), and we now affirm.
I.
In People v Baldi (54 NY2d 137, 146-147 [1981]), we
created a standard of "meaningful representation" to evaluate the
effectiveness of trial counsel, where the "prejudice component
focuses on the 'fairness of the process as a whole rather than
its particular impact on the outcome of the case'" (People v
Caban, 5 NY3d 143, 156 [2005], quoting People v Benevento, 91
NY2d 708, 714 [1998]).  In People v Stultz (2 NY3d 277 [2004]),
we adopted "meaningful representation" as the measure of
effective assistance of appellate counsel, commenting that it
would be "inapt to have one standard for trials and another for
appeals" and that "[a]ppellate courts are uniquely suited to
evaluate what is meaningful in their own arena" (id. at 284).
Stultz characterized appellate advocacy as meaningful
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No. 82
so long as it "reflect[ed] a competent grasp of the facts, the
law and appellate procedure, supported by appropriate authority
and argument" (id. at 285).  And although "in general, the issue
is whether counsel's performance viewed in totality amounts to
meaningful representation" (emphasis added), we have acknowledged
that there are "rare" cases where "a single failing in an
otherwise competent performance is so egregious and prejudicial
as to deprive a defendant of his constitutional right" (People v
Turner, 5 NY3d 476, 480 [2005] [internal quotation marks
omitted]).
Turner was such a "rare" case.  There, trial counsel
neglected to advance "[a] clear-cut and completely dispositive"
statute-of-limitations defense, which "no reasonable defense
lawyer could have found . . . so weak as to be not worth raising"
(id. at 481, 483).  We concluded that this deficiency in trial
counsel's performance "should have been apparent to any
reasonable appellate counsel, and should have prompted that
counsel to make an ineffective assistance argument" (id. at 483). 
Here, County Court postponed the VOP hearing until
defendant was released from prison in Pennsylvania, as requested
by the district attorney.  Defendant maintains that the resulting
five-year delay in adjudicating the VOP complaint violated his
statutory right under CPL article 410 (or, alternatively, his
federal due-process right) to a prompt hearing and thereby
divested County Court of jurisdiction to revoke his probation. 
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No. 82
Defendant's trial counsel did not make these arguments -- which
defendant considers to be "clear-cut and completely dispositive"
à la Turner -- at the VOP hearing, and his appellate attorney did
not point out the omission to the Appellate Division.  The
outcome of defendant's application for a writ of error coram
nobis thus depends on the soundness of his statutory and
constitutional arguments.      
II.
CPL 410.30 provides that, upon reasonable cause to
believe that a defendant has violated a condition of a sentence
of probation, the court may declare the defendant delinquent and
file a written declaration of delinquency.  Upon such filing,
"the court must promptly take reasonable and appropriate action
to cause the defendant to appear before it for the purpose of
enabling the court to make a final determination with respect to
the alleged delinquency" (id. [emphasis added]).  Concomitantly,
CPL 410.40 (2) mandates that a warrant issued by the court in
connection with a VOP must direct the defendant to be taken into
custody and brought before the court "without unnecessary delay"
(emphasis added); and CPL 410.70 (1) entitles a defendant to a
hearing on the alleged VOP "promptly after the court has filed a
declaration of delinquency" (emphasis added).
The Appellate Division examined these provisions in
Horvath.  There, Supreme Court in Kings County filed a
declaration of delinquency against the defendant for allegedly
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No. 82
violating the terms of a probationary sentence imposed upon her
after she pleaded guilty to third-degree grand larceny.  A few
months later, the defendant was arrested on additional larceny
charges in New York County; she was subsequently convicted and
sentenced to three to six years in prison on these charges. 
Prior to sentencing, the New York City Department of Probation
(City Probation Department) prepared a presentence report, which
noted that the defendant was on probation for a prior felony
conviction.  Following sentencing, the defendant was transferred
to State prison; she did not appear in Supreme Court in Kings
County to answer the declaration of delinquency until roughly 20
months after she began serving her prison sentence.  The
defendant argued that because she was not promptly produced on
the declaration of delinquency, the court lacked jurisdiction to
adjudicate her in violation of probation.
The Appellate Division agreed, first noting that
although constitutional and statutory speedy trial guarantees and
specific statutory deadlines were not implicated, "an allegation
that a probationer has violated probation may result in a serious
deprivation, including the loss of liberty" (37 AD3d at 37). 
Consequently, "the meaning of the command of CPL 410.30 that the
court 'promptly take reasonable and appropriate action to cause
the defendant to appear before it,' as well as the requirement of
CPL 410.70 (1) that a hearing be held 'promptly' after the filing
of the declaration of delinquency, must be informed by the basic
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No. 82
due process requirement that the violation of probation hearing
not be unreasonably delayed" (id.).
The court considered four factors -- the length of the
delay, the reason for the delay, whether the probationer
contributed to the delay and demonstrable prejudice to the
probationer because of the delay -- relevant to an evaluation of  
whether the timeliness requirements of CPL article 410 had been
met, remarking that "[o]rdinarily, no single factor, standing
alone, is either necessary or sufficient to warrant relief" (id.
at 38).  The Appellate Division then concluded that the delay in
this case was substantial and unexplained and not in any way
attributable to anything done by the defendant, observing that
"the [City] Probation Department had prepared a report concerning
[the defendant] which noted that she was on probation," and she
"was available to the Probation Department to be produced on the
warrant throughout the period of her incarceration" (id. at 38). 
Finally, while "not prepared to say" that the defendant suffered
no prejudice on account of the delay, the court held that CPL
article 410 "does not demand a showing of prejudice as a sine qua
non for relief," as the City Probation Department argued.  The
court called this a reasonable "legislative choice" because
"[t]he filing of a declaration of delinquency tolls the period of
probation, thereby, in effect, extending the sentence originally
imposed" (id. at 39 [citing Penal Law § 65.15 [2]).  "On this
record," the Appellate Division held that "the balance [of the
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No. 82
factors] weigh[ed] clearly in [the defendant's] favor and
therefore the Supreme Court lost jurisdiction to adjudicate her
in violation of probation" (id.).
According to defendant, "Horvath thus stands for the
rule that if a probationer is available to the Probation
Department by reason of being incarcerated, then the statutory
right to a prompt hearing attaches, and the violation of that
right causes the court to lose jurisdiction."  This formulation
begs the question of what it means for a defendant to be
"available . . . by reason of being incarcerated."  A probationer
subject to a declaration of delinquency and incarcerated in a New
York prison may readily be transported to a New York court for an
appearance at a VOP hearing; this is why the lengthy delay in
Horvath was unexplained and ultimately, in the Appellate
Division's view, inexcusable.  The extradition of such a
probationer from an out-of-state prison to New York for an
appearance in a New York court is quite another matter.
But defendant also relies on our decision in People v
Winfrey (20 NY2d 138 [1967]).  In April 1958, a warrant was
issued for the defendant's arrest for second-degree forgery and
petit larceny.  The defendant was soon thereafter incarcerated in
Alabama for a probation violation.  The New York prosecutor
lodged a detainer with the prison authorities in Alabama in July
1958, but made "no effort . . . to obtain his presence in New
York" (id. at 140).  The defendant was indicted on the forgery
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No. 82
and petit larceny charges in January 1963; he was returned to New
York for prosecution in October 1963, upon his release from
prison in Alabama.  The defendant moved to dismiss the indictment
for failure to prosecute.
The People offered the defendant's Alabama imprisonment
as justification for the delay, and argued that because Alabama
was not then a party to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, "a
request for [the defendant's] release . . . before his sentence
was completed would have had a dubious result" (id. at 142).  We
observed that the People's argument "overlook[ed] the fact that
Alabama . . . [made] provision for transfer of defendants to
other States in the discretion of the Governor" (id.).  Further,
it was "a relatively simple matter to request the Governor of a
sister State to turn over a prisoner; and there is no contention
that if such a request is made and rejected a delay in bringing
the prisoner to trial in New York occasioned by his foreign
imprisonment would be unreasonable.  The point is that in this
case no effort of any kind was made" (id.).
We decided that the delay deprived the defendant of due
process of law and so reversed the Appellate Division's order and
granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment,
observing that 
"once having instituted the prosecution by detainer
warrant, indictment or other initiatory process, [the
People] have the obligation of advancing it unless
there is reasonable ground for delay.  Refusal by
another jurisdiction to surrender the defendant would,
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No. 82
of course, be an excuse.  All that the People would
have to do is make the request, sincerely, for the
surrender -- a letter would do" (id. at 144). 
Defendant takes Winfrey and, to a lesser extent our
decision in People v Romeo (12 NY3d 51 [2009]),2 to stand for the
proposition that the County was, at a minimum, required to make a
prompt request of the State's extradition coordinator to arrange
for defendant's presence at a VOP hearing in New York once
defendant wrote County Court in July 2002, asking to appear and
answer the VOP complaint.  Courts, however, have traditionally
treated extradition for purposes of criminal prosecution, as in
Winfrey and Romeo, as matters of far greater urgency and
constitutional dimension than probation revocation proceedings. 
The United States Supreme Court's decisions in Carchman and Moody
v Daggett (429 US 78 [1976]) illustrate this point.
In Carchman, the Supreme Court held that the Interstate
Agreement on Detainers, designed to encourage jurisdictions to
cooperate with one another in resolving outstanding detainers,
does not apply to a detainer for a probation-violation warrant. 
This is so because a "probation-violation charge is not a
detainer based on 'any untried indictment, information or
2The defendant in Romeo fatally shot a man in New York
before absconding to Canada and fatally shooting a second victim
there.  We held that the 12-year postindictment delay, occasioned
by the People's decision to defer prosecution and allow the
defendant to be extradited to Canada for prosecution there first,
violated the defendant's speedy trial rights.  We faulted the
People for failing to file an extradition warrant or make other
diligent efforts to bring the defendant to trial promptly. 
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No. 82
complaint,' within the meaning of" the language in Article III of
the Agreement (Carchman, 473 US at 726).  Article III sets up a
procedure whereby a prisoner incarcerated in one party state (the
sending state) may demand the speedy disposition of "any untried
indictment, information or complaint on the basis of which a
detainer has been lodged against the prisoner" by another party
state (the receiving state) (see CPL 580.20).  Article IV sets up
a corollary procedure whereby an "appropriate officer of the
jurisdiction in which an untried indictment, information or
complaint is pending shall be entitled to have a prisoner against
whom he has lodged a detainer and who is serving a term of
imprisonment in any party state made available" (id.).
In reaching its decision in Carchman, the Court
stressed that the statute's broader purposes with respect to
criminal-charge detainers did not generally apply in the context
of probation-violation detainers.  First, there was less danger
of unsubstantiated charges since the probation-violation detainer
was often based on the prisoner's commission of the crimes
resulting in his conviction and incarceration (Carchman, 473 US
at 730-731).  Second, there were fewer uncertainties in the
likelihood of receiving an additional sentence -- i.e., "[s]ince
the probation revocation [was] based on commission of a crime
serious enough to warrant incarceration in the sending State, the
probationer no doubt often . . . [would] be sentenced to serve
the full term of his suspended sentence" (id. at 732).  Finally,
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No. 82
the possibility that a long delay would impair the prisoner's
ability to defend himself was "unlikely to be strongly implicated
in the probation-violation detainer context" (id. at 733).
The Court commented that it had "never held . . . that
a prisoner subject to a probation-violation detainer has a
constitutional right to a speedy probation-revocation hearing,"
citing Moody (id. at 731 n 10).  Finally, although the Court
recognized that an individual prisoner might have a legitimate
interest in prompt disposition of a probation-violation charge,
it concluded that "[n]evertheless, . . . the purposes of the
Agreement [were] significantly less advanced by application . . .
to probation-violation detainers than by application . . . to
criminal-charge detainers"; and "[w]hether those purposes would
be advanced sufficiently by application of Art. III to probation-
violation detainers to outweigh the administrative costs,3 and,
more generally, whether the procedures of Art. III are the most
appropriate means of disposing of probation-violation detainers,
[were] questions of legislative judgment" best left to the
parties to the Agreement (id. at 734).
3A number of states filed an amicus curiae brief in which
they argued that "expanding the scope of [the Agreement] to
include detainers for violation of probationary sentences," would
"create[] a substantial obligation on the States. Since there is
no constitutional obligation on the States to move speedily to
revoke probation [citing Moody], the States' obligations are
those knowingly accepted . . . in signing the agreement" (Brief
of Amicus Curiae, 1984 WL 566114 [US], at *16-17). 
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No. 82
Moody involved a challenge to the United States Board
of Parole's decision to delay the execution of a parole-violation
warrant until the alleged violator had served the custodial
portion of an intervening prison sentence.  While on federal
parole, the parolee was convicted of two more federal offenses
for which he was incarcerated in a federal prison.  The Board
issued a parole-violation warrant, which was lodged as a detainer
in the federal prison.  Although the parolee requested speedy
execution of the outstanding warrant, the Board allowed the
warrant to remain unexecuted until the parolee had completed
serving the new federal sentence.
The Supreme Court endorsed this approach, concluding
that due process did not mandate a hearing promptly upon issuance
of the parole-violation warrant and the detainer.  The Court
reasoned that the outstanding warrant did not deprive the parolee
of any protected liberty interest: the possibility of future
incarceration if a revocation was eventually ordered was too
uncertain to constitute a liberty interest; the parolee's claim
that the detainer made him ineligible for certain prison programs
and caused a less desirable classification was insufficient to
invoke due process; the unexecuted warrant did not deprive the
parolee of the chance of concurrent sentences because the United
State Parole Commission was authorized by statute to revoke
parole and grant, retroactively, credit for time already served
in prison for crimes committed while on parole; and the parolee
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No. 82
made no claim that any evidence in his case would be "vitiated by
delay" (Moody, 429 US at 88 n 9).
The Court also stated that "there [was] a practical
aspect to consider" in cases where "the parolee admits or has
been convicted of an offense plainly constituting a parole
violation."  Specifically, the alleged parole violator might
benefit from a later hearing because "a decision to revoke parole
would often be foreordained" if the hearing was held immediately
after imprisonment, while deferring the hearing until expiration
of the parolee's intervening sentence would yield more relevant
and accurate information to predict whether release was justified
(id. at 89).  Although Moody is arguably distinguishable from
cases involving more than one jurisdiction, post-Moody decisions
have generally interpreted it to mean that states are not
constitutionally obligated to execute detainers lodged out-of-
state against parole or probation violators before their release
from prison (see generally 2 N. Cohen, The Law of Probation and
Parole §§ 24:10, 24:11, 24:12 [1999]).4
4Even though Moody involved a federal prisoner attacking a
federal detainer, several states filed amicus curiae briefs,
apparently sensing that the decision might affect their
extradition practices with respect to alleged parole and
probation violators.  These amici emphasized that the Court's
decision involving the scope of due process should consider the
administrative burdens imposed on them by available alternatives. 
For example, the Commonwealth of Virginia argued that "[t]o
require that a final revocation hearing be held while [the
alleged violator] is still incarcerated in a foreign jurisdiction
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No. 82
                 
III.                   
As the discussion of the relevant statutes and cases
shows, the arguments that defendant asserts trial counsel should
have advanced at the VOP hearing are not so strong that "no
reasonable defense lawyer could have found [them] . . . to be not
worth raising" (Turner, 5 NY3d at 483).  They are, in fact, novel
and call for an extension of or change in -- not an application
of -- existing law.  As a result, there was no reason for
appellate counsel to make an ineffective-assistance argument.  As
we noted in People v Borrell (12 NY3d 365, 369 [2009]),
"[c]ounsel [is] not ineffective for failing to raise an issue of
. . . uncertain efficacy on the appeal."  
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be affirmed.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Order affirmed.  Opinion by Judge Read.  Chief Judge Lippman and
Judges Ciparick, Graffeo, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur.
Decided May 5, 2011
places an undue burden upon the paroling States and tends to
overlook administrative realities" (Brief of Amicus Curiae, 1976
WL 181202 [US], at * 8).  Essentially, the states were worried
about the extra costs involved, just as Greene County was in this
case.  
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