Court Opinion

ID: 9834828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 01:54:45.344943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:54.797708
License: Public Domain

Tom, J.R, and Webber, J.,
dissent in a memorandum by Web-ber, J., as follows: I respectfully disagree with the majority. Defendant should not be permitted to benefit, by his misconduct, from a favorable change in the law occurring many years after his direct appeal should have been perfected.
On July 29, 2001, defendant sold cocaine to three separate buyers in three separate transactions. Defendant was arrested on September 4, 2001. By indictment, defendant was charged with two counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree and one count of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree.
On December 20, 2001, defendant, with counsel present, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, a class B felony, in full satisfaction of the indictment, in exchange for a promised minimum sentence of no more than three years in prison, with the maximum term not to exceed nine years. Defendant acknowledged, inter alia, that his plea was voluntary, that he was surrendering certain specified trial rights by entering into the plea, and that no other promises were made to him to induce his plea aside from the specified sentence parameters. Defendant, who was not a U.S. citizen, was not informed by the plea court of any possible immigration consequences of his plea. Defendant admitted that on July 29, 2001, while in New York County, he sold one half ounce or more of cocaine to another individual. On July 13, 2004, defendant was sentenced *449to a prison term of from l3/4 to 5V4 years.* On November 16, 2004, federal immigration authorities notified defendant that he was removable from the country based on his 2001 conviction.
On December 16, 2004, defendant, pro se, moved to enlarge his time to file a notice of appeal. By order entered January 11, 2005, this Court granted defendant’s motion to the extent of deeming the notice of appeal timely filed. On January 13, 2005, an Immigration Judge ordered defendant removed from the United States to his native Dominican Republic. In or about February 2005, defendant was paroled from state custody for purposes of deportation. Although the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the Immigration Judge’s order, defendant was not deported at that time. This Court, based in part on the parties’ stipulation, granted defendant an enlargement of the time to perfect to the April 2007 Term.
In March 2007, defendant absconded while on parole, and used the name Angelo Tejada. Defendant’s whereabouts remained unknown until April 2014 when he was arrested for a new, unrelated offense. By order entered April 21, 2015, this Court granted defendant’s motion to the extent of enlarging his time to perfect to the September 2015 Term.
On December 31, 2014, defendant’s parole was revoked and he was returned to state prison to serve his sentence. Defendant, in his March 2015 application for resentencing under the Drug Law Reform Act of 2009 — which was ultimately denied— asserted that he discontinued reporting to his parole officer in 2007 out of fear he would be deported and separated from his family.
In November 2013, the Court of Appeals decided in Peque that a defendant who is not a U.S. citizen must be apprised by the court of the immigration consequences of a guilty plea. The Peque holding was retroactive to the extent it applied to any case then pending on direct appeal at that time. Here, defendant’s appeal was pending at the time he absconded in April 2007, and it remained pending at the time of his rearrest in April 2014. If defendant had timely perfected his appeal in 2007, Peque would be inapplicable.
The majority asserts that the defendant should not be denied the benefit of the ruling in Peque merely because at an earlier date he ceased reporting to his parole officer. Defendant absconded for over seven years during which time he knowingly attempted to evade detection by the use of another name. *450His return in 2015 was not voluntary, but rather the result of a new arrest. It is my opinion that defendant should not be permitted to benefit, by his misconduct, from a favorable change in the law occurring many years after his direct appeal should have been perfected (see People v Diaz, 41 Misc 3d 351, 354 [Sup Ct, NY County 2013]; see also People v Allen, 309 AD2d 624 [1st Dept 2003], lv denied 1 NY3d 567 [2003] [denying presentencing absconder benefit of otherwise applicable statutory amendment]).
As the majority points out, Diaz is not binding upon this court. However, it is instructive. In Diaz, defendant absconded for five years and sought to invoke the retroactive application of Padilla v Kentucky (559 US 356 [2010]). The court aptly observed that the “[defendant, by his own wrongdoing, . . . forfeited the right to any retroactive application of Padilla based on the fact that his case [was] not yet final on direct review” (Diaz at 354). The court noted that allowing the defendant to benefit from his own wrongdoing runs afoul of the common law doctrine of “forfeiture by wrongdoing” which recognizes that the wrongdoer is deemed to have forfeited the benefit that would flow from his wrongdoing (id. at 353, citing, inter alia, Giles v California, 554 US 353 [2008]; Campbell v Thomas, 73 AD3d 103 [2d Dept 2010]).
The majority asserts that to deny relief to defendant would be unnecessarily carving out an exception to Peque. I disagree. This is simply an acknowledgment that a defendant should not be allowed to benefit from his own unlawful conduct.
Arguably the majority’s position encourages defendants to abscond whenever possible. Not only would there be no penalty for absconding, defendants, if caught, would reap the benefits of changes in the law while on the lam without any consequences for their actions. Here, the defendant, who absconded from parole for a period of over seven years, used another name and was then rearrested for a new, unrelated offense, would be rewarded with the retroactive application of the Peque ruling, resulting in the vacatur of his plea, an untenable result. An absconder from the law should not reap the benefit of recent changes in the law; to do otherwise, would reward a defendant for his or her misconduct.
The majority’s contention that a defendant who absconds still faces a parole violation fails to acknowledge the far more significant benefit to the defendant of the vacatur of the plea.
The majority’s assertion that the People should have sought dismissal of the appeal while the defendant was absent, and if they had done so, then perhaps the motion would have been *451granted is obviously speculative and more importantly continues to ignore the misconduct of the defendant. While the People did not move to dismiss the appeal or object to defendant’s motion to perfect the appeal on the grounds that the defendant absconded, they clearly indicated that the defendant failed to appear. Further, that the defendant was allowed to perfect his appeal seven years later does not mean that the Court is obligated to grant the relief requested where the defendant, by his own actions, forfeited his right to such relief.
Clearly, given the significant passage of time since the 2001 offense and the attendant difficulties in locating witnesses and/or refreshing their memories, the People would be greatly prejudiced if defendant’s plea were vacated pursuant to Peque.

 The record is silent as to why there was a delay in defendant’s sentence.