Opinion ID: 1983521
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Text and Legislative History

Text: The specific question posed by this appeal is whether the evidence presented to the grand jury satisfies jurisdiction in New York County within the meaning of CPL 20.40 (2) (c). In order to answer this question, we must construe CPL 20.40 (2) (c), which grants so-called particular effect jurisdiction to New York counties. Because [i]t is fundamental that a court, in interpreting a statute, should attempt to effectuate the intent of the Legislature ( Majewski v Broadalbin-Perth Cent. School Dist., 91 NY2d 577, 583 [1998] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]), our goal should be to apply CPL 20.40 (2) (c) to this case as the Legislature would have intended it to apply. Since the clearest indicator of legislative intent is the statutory text ( Majewski, 91 NY2d at 583), our starting point in construing CPL 20.40 must be the provision's language. CPL 20.40 states that [a] person may be convicted in an appropriate criminal court of a particular county, of an offense of which the criminal courts of this state have jurisdiction pursuant to section 20.20 ... when any one of 19 statutory subsections is fulfilled. Subdivision (2) (c) vests geographical jurisdiction in a county [e]ven though none of the conduct constituting such offense may have occurred within such county if [s]uch conduct had, or was likely to have, a particular effect upon such county or a political subdivision or part thereof, and was performed with intent that it would, or with knowledge that it was likely to, have such particular effect therein. Relatedly, CPL 20.10 (4) defines a particular effect as a materially harmful impact upon the governmental processes or community welfare of the county seeking to assert jurisdiction. Where the natural signification of the words employed in a statute leaves no room for construction ... courts have no right to add to or take away from that meaning and the task of judicial interpretation is finished ( Majewski, 91 NY2d at 583 [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]). Here, the CPL's text does not define materially harmful impact, governmental processes, or community welfare; nor does the text explain whether particular modifies county in addition to effect. Because the text of CPL 20.40 (2) (c) is not too clear for construction ( see McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 76), we need to examine its legislative historyin particular, its general and specific derivationin order to glean and effectuate the intent of the Legislature. The drafting history of CPL 20.40 (2) establishes certain points critical to this appeal. First, CPL 20.40 (2) is a remedial statute, intended by the Legislature to remedy gaps in county jurisdiction created by the strict common-law rule of vicinage. Under the common law, a crime could only be prosecuted in a county in which all elements were performed; as a result, there was a jurisdictional gap for crimes that crossed county lines (for example, death is a result element of murder; if a defendant stabbed a victim in Nassau County, and the victim staggered into Queens County before dying, common-law vicinage would allow for jurisdiction in neither county). As far back as 1881, however, the Legislature saw fit to remedy this deficiency in county jurisdiction, passing section 134 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCrP), a statute providing that [w]hen a crime is committed, partly in one county and partly in another ... the jurisdiction is in either county. New York courts interpreting CCrP § 134 recognized the statute as remedial and therefore refused attempts to adopt construction[s of the statute] that w[ere] never intended and which, to say the least, would be extremely technical ( People v Licenziata, 199 App Div 106, 110 [2d Dept 1921]). In the 1960s, New York overhauled its criminal law and its law of criminal procedure, appointing a Temporary Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code. The Commission's efforts led to the 1970 Criminal Procedure Law ( see L 1970, ch 996), a complete reconstruction from the ground up in which [t]he changes in substance w[ere] numerous and frequently of a fundamental nature (6th Interim Rep of Temp Commn on Rev of Penal Law and Crim Code, 1967 NY Legis Doc No. 6, at 7). That said, many CPL provisions had some counterpart in the predecessor CCrP, and the CPL itself contains a derivation table indicating any CPL sections that were specifically or generally derived from coordinate provisions of the CCrP. As relevant here, this table shows that section 20.40 (2) traces its general origins to CCrP § 134 ( see L 1970, ch 996, at 3387). While CPL 20.40 (2), like its general predecessor CCrP § 134, was a legislative remedy to strict common-law vicinage, the CPL did more than merely recodify the preexisting law of county jurisdiction, which the Commission described as meager and shallow (Staff Comment of Temp St Commn on Rev of Penal Law and Crim Code, 1967 Proposed NY CPL 10.40, at 45). Explaining section 10.40 (the forerunner of CPL 20.40), the Commission Staff wrote, The rules governing the jurisdiction of this state over offenses which may also be within the jurisdiction of another state are quite comparable to those governing the jurisdiction of a county over offenses which may also be within the jurisdiction of another county. In general, however, multiple county jurisdiction is bestowed more liberally than state jurisdiction, and there are several kinds of situations in which a county acquires jurisdiction of an offense pursuant to this section where the state, in an analogous inter-state situation, would not acquire jurisdiction under section 10.20  ( id. at 45 [emphasis added]). Thus, in addition to citing CPL 20.40 (2)'s remedial predecessor, the drafters of the CPL explained that while state and county geographical jurisdiction are similar, county geographical jurisdiction under CPL 20.40 is less strict (bestowed more liberally) than state geographical jurisdiction under CPL 20.20. In sum, the Legislature intended the provisions of CPL 20.40 (2) to prevent a miscarriage of justice owing to county jurisdictional limits prescribed by the common law ( Licenziata, 199 App Div at 111); and the Legislature also intended that the provisions of CPL 20.40 sweep more broadly than CPL 20.20 as a general matter. By construing the statute to allow a situation where there is geographical jurisdiction in the State but not in any of its individual counties, the majority ignores both propositions.