Case Name: The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Albert Bennett Petgen, Appellant
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1982-05-11
Citations: 55 N.Y.2d 529
Docket Number: 
Parties: The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Albert Bennett Petgen, Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 55
Pages: 529–537

Head Matter:
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Albert Bennett Petgen, Appellant.
Argued March 29, 1981;
decided May 11, 1982
POINTS OF COUNSEL
E. Stewart Jones, Jr., and Robert M. Cohen for appellant.
I. Judge Battisti’s order violated the well-settled rule that a Judge cannot overrule the determination of another Judge of co-ordinate jurisdiction. (Matter of Dondi v Jones, 40 NY2d 8; People v Jenkins, 39 AD2d 924; People v Solomon, 91 Misc 2d 760; People v Bauer, 36 AD2d 888; People v Canna, 35 AD2d 1062; People v La Placa, 17 AD2d 766; People v Tartt, 71 Misc 2d 955; George W. Collins, Inc. v Olsker-McLain Inds., 22 AD2d 485.) II. Judge Battisti’s order violated the law of the case doctrine. (Martin v City of Cohoes, 37 NY2d 162; People v Watson, 57 AD2d 143; Duane Sales v Carmel, 57 AD2d 1003; Matter of Marocco v State of New York, 56 AD2d 949; Fadden v Cambridge Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 51 Misc 2d 858, 27 AD2d 487; Matter of McGrath v Gold, 36 NY2d 406; Dain & Dill v Betterton, 39 AD2d 939; George W. Collins, Inc. v Olsker-McLain Inds., 22 AD2d 485.) III. It was an abuse of discretion for Judge Battisti to deny defendant’s motion to extend time to seek suppression. (People v Huelin, 85 Misc 2d 139; People v Egan, 72 AD2d 239; People v Frigenti, 91 Misc 2d 139; People v Thomas, 47 NY2d 37; People v Jenkins, 73 AD2d 694; People v Wyssling, 82 Misc 2d 708; People v Solomon, 91 Misc 2d 760.) IV. Original counsel’s failure to make the suppression motions constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. (People v Crump, 53 NY2d 824; People v Brown, 45 NY2d 852; People v Brown, 40 NY2d 381; People v Rivera, 107 Misc 2d 544; People v Detling, 73 AD2d 937; People v Ramos, 53 AD2d 703; People v Primo, 69 AD2d 890; People v Donald R. E., 53 AD2d 780; People v Roff, 67 AD2d 805; People v Bell, 48 NY2d 933.)
Seymour Meadow, District Attorney (Michael O’Brien of counsel), for respondent.
I. Reargument of defendant’s application granted by one Judge was properly before a Judge of co-ordinate jurisdiction. (People v Calhoun, 49 NY2d 398; People v Yarter, 41 NY2d 830; People v Young, 48 NY2d 995; Matter of Cheryl B. v Alfred W. D., 99 Misc 2d 1085; People v Jenkins, 39 AD2d 924; People v Garofalo, 71 AD2d 782, 49 NY2d 879; People v Reap, 68 AD2d 964; Matter of Wright v County of Monroe, 45 AD2d 932; Kamp v Kamp, 59 NY 212; People v Whitridge, 144 App Div 493.) II. The order on reargument superseded the prior order. (Aridas v Caserta, 41 NY2d 1059; Bonilla v Reeves, 49 Misc 2d 273; Foley v Roche, 68 AD2d 558; Simpson v Loehmann, 21 NY2d 990; Tonkonogy v Seidenberg, 63 AD2d 587; Rosemont Enterprises v Irving, 49 AD2d 445; Weiss v Nathan, 30 AD2d 856; Dennis v Stout, 24 AD2d 461; Mutual Life Ins. Co. of N. Y. v 160 East 72nd St. Corp., 272 App Div 48.) III. The denial of defendant’s untimely application for an evidentiary hearing before trial was not an abuse of discretion. (People v Turner, 49 NY2d 925; People v Stafford, 79 AD2d 435; People v McCall, 17 NY2d 152; People v Bostic, 97 Misc 2d 1039; People v Weaver, 49 NY2d 1012; People v Glen, 30 NY2d 252; People v Schultz, 40 AD2d 690; Feuerstein v People of N. Y., 515 F Supp 573; People v Ganci, 27 NY2d 418, 402 US 924; People v L. B. Smith, Inc., 108 Misc 2d 261.) IV. Defendant’s claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are not supported by the record and must be considered waived by his plea. (People v Thomas, 53 NY2d 338; People v Lewis, 46 NY2d 825; People v Brown, 45 NY2d 852; People v Raco, 72 AD2d 857; People v De Mauro, 48 NY2d 892; People v Rivera, 73 AD2d 528; People v Pascale, 48 NY2d 997; People v La Ruffa, 37 NY2d 58, 423 US 917; People v Lynn, 28 NY2d 196; Menna v New York, 423 US 61.)

Opinion:
OPINION OF THE COURT
Jones, J.
An order denying an application for permission to make a late motion to suppress, as distinguished from an order denying a motion to suppress on the merits, does not come within the scope of CPL 710.70 (subd 2), and accordingly the right to appellate review thereof is forfeited by a guilty plea. Likewise such a plea, entered on advice of competent counsel, constitutes a forfeiture of a claim of prior ineffective assistance of counsel on the part of a former attorney where the full measure of the asserted derelictions of the first attorney were known to the second attorney who nonetheless counseled acceptance of the plea.
Johnny Marmo was shot and killed on December 14, 1977. Defendant and his son were indicted on charges of manslaughter in the first degree. They were convicted in April, 1979 after a trial in which one attorney represented both of them.
In consequence of an allegedly improper search conducted by the police after the Marmo incident, defendant had alsó been charged individually in a separate 45-count indictment with one count of alleged unlawful disposition of a machine gun, one count of alleged possession of marihuana, and 43 counts of possession of various weapons. This indictment, returned February 16, 1978, led to the conviction which is the subject of the present appeal.
At defendant's arraignment on the 45-count indictment on March 8, 1978, pursuant to CPL 710.30 the People served notice of their intention to offer in evidence on trial oral statements made by defendant to a police officer on December 14, 1977. Defendant's then counsel, who was also representing him on the manslaughter charge, took no action with respect to that notice, and the 45-count indictment lay dormant until after defendant had been convicted on the manslaughter charge. Defendant's present counsel, brought in to represent him on the appeal from his conviction for manslaughter (which conviction was reversed at the Appellate Division on the ground that defendant had been deprived of his constitutional right to assistance of counsel by reason of the joint representation of both defendant and his son by the same attorney [People v Richard MM., 75 AD2d 389]), first learned of the present charges in September, 1979. At his request County Court put the case over to permit the substitute counsel to familiarize himself with the case. Communications with defendant's prior attorney having been unproductive, finally on December 14, 1979 counsel obtained a copy of the 45-count indictment from the District Attorney and was then informed that no motions, had been made and accordingly no suppression hearing held.
The normal statutory period of 45 day's within which to make a motion to suppress having long since expired, on January 7, 1980 counsel made an application, pursuant to CPL 710.40 (subd 2), for permission to file a late suppression motion and for other relief. On January 25, 1980 Judge Fromer of Greene County Court granted permission to file the late motion to suppress. The District Attorney then sought reargument before Judge Battisti of the same court, and on February 8,1980, based in part on representations by the District Attorney that Judge Fromer had disqualified himself from hearing the case, Judge Battisti granted reargument and on réargument denied the application for permission to file the late motion to suppress. One week later defendant entered a plea of guilty to the first count in full satisfaction of the 45-count indictment.
On appeal from his resulting conviction the Appellate Division affirmed, rejecting defendant's contentions that, as a Judge of co-ordinate jurisdiction, Judge Battisti had no authority to grant reargument, that in any event it was error to have denied defendant's application to file a late motion to suppress, and that defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel by his first attorney, all on the merits. We affirm but on a different rationale.
We conclude that by his plea of guilty defendant forfeited his right to appellate review of the contentions he now presses on us. The right to appellate review of the denial of a motion to suppress is preservéd notwithstanding a guilty pléa only in consequence of express statutory provision (CPL 710.70, subd 2). Defendant's application for permission to file a late motion to suppress, however, is to be distinguished from a motion to suppress. The granting of that application depended on a factual determination that, "owing to unawareness of facts constituting the basis thereof or to other factors, the defendant did not have reasonable opportunity to make the motion previously" (CPL 710.40, subd 2); it did not involve consideration or denial of the merits of the constitutional contentions which defendant might later have asserted on a motion to suppress had permission been granted him to make such a motion. Accordingly, his right to appeal from the denial of his application did not survive his plea of guilty under the provisions of CPL 710.70 (subd 2).
Nor does defendant's assertion in this case that he was denied effective assistance of counsel survive his plea. There is no suggestion that, aside from the asserted default of the first attorney in failing to make a suppression motion, the acceptance of the plea was infected by any ineffective assistance of counsel. Defendant's replacement counsel, confronted with the fact that his application for permission to make a late motion to suppress had been denied, was fully aware of all the asserted derelictions of the first attorney and, by reason of his own unquestioned competence and experience as attorney for th^ defense, was fully qualified to make a seasoned assessment of defendant's claims in the circumstances and of the likelihood of their judicial acceptance. In this instance it cannot be said that any ineffective assistance of counsel vitiated defendant's plea of guilty premised as it was on advice of counsel (as to which there is now no suggestion of incompetency) comprehending, inter alia, the very claims of ineffective assistance of counsel that defendant now urges on us.
For the reasons stated, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.
. (CPL 710.40, subd 1; 255.20, subd 1.),
. CPL 710.70 (subd 2) provides: "An order finally denying a motion to suppress evidence may be reviewed upon an appeal from an ensuing judgment of conviction notwithstanding the fact that such judgment is entered upon a plea of guilty."
Even if we were to accept the dissenter's characterization of Judge Battisti's order of February 8,1980 as "an unauthorized order taking away from defendant the suppression hearing already granted" (dissent, p 537), that would not change the consequence to be attached to his guilty plea. However characterized, and whether or not authorized, the order did mot constitute a disposition on the merits of the motion to suppress and accordingly did not come within the preservative shelter of subdivision 2.
. Indeed it may be persuasively argued that even if there were but one attorney, if the ineffective assistance of counsel did not infect the plea bargaining process itself, the defendant, having admitted commission of the criminal act by his guilty plea, should be held to have forfeited any claim of ineffective assistance of counsel not directly involved in the plea bargaining process.