Court Opinion

ID: 9837637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:45:27.49609+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:28.215382
License: Public Domain

Renwick, J.
(dissenting). This appeal stems from a bargained-for plea, which was based on an illegal minimum in-carceratory sentence, offered as an inducement for defendant’s waiver of his constitutionally protected rights, including the right to a jury trial. A divided panel of this Court reversed the judgment of conviction, based upon the guilty plea, on the ground that the plea violated due process because it was induced by an illegal promise (People v Williams, 123 AD3d 240 [1st Dept 2014], revd 27 NY3d 212 [2016]). The Court of Appeals, however, reversed our determination on the procedural ground that defendant “failed to preserve his current claim for appellate review” (27 NY3d at 214). The Court of Appeals remanded the case “for [our] consideration of the facts and issues raised but not determined on the appeal to th[is] Court” (id. at 225). The question before us now is whether we should exercise our discretion to examine the merits of defend*110ant’s claim in the interest of justice. In my view, we should do so and find that the plea here violated defendant’s due process rights. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
This case has its genesis in defendant’s arrest on January 7, 2010, for allegedly selling drugs to an undercover police officer. On November 1, 2011, defendant entered into a plea agreement that required him to plead guilty to the top count of the indictment, criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, a class B felony. In exchange, the trial court promised to sentence defendant to a definite term of imprisonment of three years and two years of postrelease supervision (PRS). In addition, as part of the plea agreement, the trial court permitted defendant to remain at liberty pending sentence. This was done with the understanding that defendant’s sentence could be enhanced to a maximum prison term of 12 years, at the discretion of the sentencing court, if he failed to return to court for sentencing, failed to cooperate with the Department of Probation, or committed a crime.
Neither the trial court nor the parties realized that the agreed upon sentence, to be imposed if defendant complied with the conditions of the plea, was illegal. Specifically, defendant had previously been convicted of attempted criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and adjudicated a predicate violent felony' offender (see Penal Law §§ 110.00, 265.03 [3]; 70.02 [1] [b]). Under the circumstances, the correct incarceratory sentence range, for the crime to which defendant pleaded guilty, was from a minimum of 6 years to a maximum of 15 years (see Penal Law § 70.70 [4] [b] [i]).
After his plea, but prior to his sentence in this case, defendant was arrested in an unrelated matter. Soon thereafter, on November 17, 2011, the trial court held an Outley hearing to determine whether defendant had violated the plea conditions (People v Outley, 80 NY2d 702 [1993]). At the hearing, a police officer testified that he arrested defendant after observing him smoking marijuana with two other men while inside a public housing building. The District Attorney’s Office, however, declined to prosecute defendant because he was not found in possession of any marijuana. Nevertheless, finding the police officer’s testimony credible, the trial court determined that defendant had committed the crime of misdemeanor criminal possession of marijuana. Accordingly, the trial court found defendant in violation of the plea agreement and sentenced him to six years in prison, as well as two years of PRS, which the *111court considered “an appropriate enhancement in view of all the things that went on related to this case.” As indicated, on appeal, this Court sustained defendant’s challenge to the validity of his plea but the Court of Appeals found the challenge un-preserved.
On remittitur from the Court of Appeals, we should find that the unpreserved issue should be considered as matter of discretion in the interest of justice. In civil cases (see Bingham v New York City Tr. Auth., 99 NY2d 355, 359 [2003]), as well as in criminal cases (CPL 470.15 [3] [c]), it is within the power of the Appellate Division (unlike the Court of Appeals) as a matter of discretion, to consider, “in the interest of justice,” claims that have not been preserved for appellate review. Even though the Appellate Division possesses interest of justice jurisdiction, this Court should “exercise[ ] [it] sparingly and only in that rare and unusual case where it cries out for fundamental justice beyond the confines of conventional considerations” (People v Harmon, 181 AD2d 34, 36 [1st Dept 1992] [internal quotation marks omitted]; see also 11 Carmody-Wait 2d § 72:142 at 353).
This is one of those rare cases that not only presents a meritorious claim of a violation of due process during the plea process, but also raises a claim of significant public policy concerns. As Court of Appeals’ Judge Rivera decisively expressed in her dissent to the majority’s reversal of this Court’s determination on the prior appeal, the “judicial practice employed in defendant’s case jeopardizes the public confidence in plea bargaining and the criminal justice system as a whole” (People v Williams, 27 NY3d at 225).
Moreover, while the Court of Appeals obviously did not examine the merits of defendant’s claim, the dissenting Judges did. The dissent completely agreed with our view that the plea here violated defendant’s due process rights when “the Judge at the plea hearing failed to ensure the defendant understood the direct sentencing consequences of the plea, and wrongly informed defendant that the offer was a legal minimum rather than one precluded by law” (id. at 225-226). As Judge Rivera cogently explained in her dissenting opinion:
“The legitimacy of our ‘bargain-for-sentence’ criminal process is based on the assurance that where promises are made to induce a defendant’s guilty plea, they are capable of being enforced. Without *112such assurances defendants would be loathe to engage in a risky high-stakes negotiation involving trading personal liberty interests in exchange for no benefit at all. Thus, a criminal justice system that tolerates unenforceable bargains increases the potential ‘detrimental effect on the criminal justice system that will result should it come to be believed that the State can renege on its plea bargains with impunity notwithstanding defendant’s performance.’ Similarly, because illegal sentencing promises can bear no assurance of enforcement, they undermine public confidence in plea bargains, and discourage defendants from entering these agreements. It is therefore crucial that ‘the court in overseeing and supervising the delicate balancing of public and private interests in the process of plea bargaining’ conduct its constitutional duty to ensure the lawfulness of promises leading to a defendant’s incarceration. The judge here failed to fulfill his duty, and the sole remedy for the defect presented on this record is to vacate the plea” (People v Williams, 27 NY3d at 234-235 [citations omitted]).
On the merits of defendant’s due process claim, the majority utters the hyperbolic statement that “the Court of Appeals’ binding rulings in Williams, Collier, and DeValle are controlling law and dispositive of defendant’s due process claim.” Ironically, Court of Appeals’ Judge Rivera also thoroughly refutes the majority’s argument:
“The People further argue that a sentencing court has the inherent power to correct an illegal sentence. True enough, but a court could not have corrected the sentence to coincide with the plea offer. Put another way, defendant could not be legally sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for the crime to which he pleaded guilty.
“Nevertheless, the People contend that under People v Collier if the original promise could not be imposed, the sentencing court could impose another lawful sentence as long as it ‘comports with the defendant’s legitimate expectations.’ According to the People, under that principle, because defendant received the legal statutory minimum of six years, *113the ultimate sentence imposed fulfilled his expectations of a ‘minimum’ sentence. The People apparently ignore that the original sentencing offer was a minimum of three years, not six, and that three years was the number of consequence to defendant. As this Court has recognized, ‘the overwhelming consideration for the defendant is whether he [or she] will be imprisoned and for how long’ ” (People v Williams, 27 NY3d at 228-229 [citations omitted]).
Judge Rivera went on to state as follows:
“The Court’s holding in People v DeValle (94 NY2d 870 [2000]) is not to the contrary. In that case, the Court held that the trial court had inherent power to correct an illegal sentence where defendant did not seek withdrawal of the plea, and also failed to establish detrimental reliance on the illegal sentence that could not be addressed by returning Tiim to his preplea status, if he so desired. Here, defendant seeks the remedy the Court in DeValle recognized as appropriately available to the defendant on the facts of that case. Thus, unlike the defendant in DeValle who, in essence, demanded specific performance of an illegal sentence, defendant here seeks no more than what the law allows, namely to be returned to his preplea status” (People v Williams, 27 NY3d at 229 n 3).
Judge Rivera continued:
“In Williams, this Court rejected a defendant’s challenge to a resentence that imposed an enhanced maximum period of incarceration directly within the period expressly explained to defendant at the time of the plea. As the facts of that case establish, defendant was originally sentenced to an illegal indeterminate prison term of 3V2 to 7 years, and thereafter resentenced to a lawful term of 3V2 to IOV2 years’ imprisonment. The Court concluded that defendant did not have a legitimate expectation of finality in the prior illegal sentence because the Judge had informed defendant in advance that he was pleading to a crime that, by law, allowed the Judge ‘to impose a sentence of up to 15 years.’ As relevant to the instant appeal, the defendant’s *114minimum of 3V2 years’ imprisonment went unchanged from the illegal sentence to the resentence. Thus, this Court properly focused on the defendant’s maximum sentencing exposure” (People v Williams, 27 NY3d at 230 [citations omitted]).
Judge Rivera also stated as follows:
“The decisions in Collier . . . [and] Williams . . . presuppose that a defendant who pleads guilty while fully aware of the period of incarceration attached to the plea is making a choice to bargain away freedom for at least the minimum, and up to the maximum, as described by the court. In accordance with this guiding principle, defendant’s plea must be vacated because it was based on a three-year illegal minimum sentence, which the court communicated as the lowest end of the applicable sentencing range” (People v Williams, 27 NY3d at 230-231).
Finally, contrary to the majority’s allegations, it is appropriate for this Court to exercise interest of justice jurisdiction to examine an unpreserved question that has importance beyond the individual case. Indeed, this Court should not hesitate to review an unpreserved claim if this Court finds that the strong policy interest contained in the preservation rule should be tempered because of the unique public policy concerns implicated in a case. The recent pronouncement in People v Rosado (96 AD3d 547 [1st Dept 2012]) illustrates an instance in which this Court exercised interest of justice jurisdiction to examine an unpreserved claim because the issue in the case had importance beyond the individual case.
Specifically, in Rosado, this Court exercised its interest of justice jurisdiction to review an unpreserved claim of error in a jury instruction relating to the so-called “drug factory presumption” (id. at 548), which creates a rebuttable inference of constructive possession of certain drugs in open view by each person discovered in close proximity to the drugs (see id.; Penal Law § 220.25 [2]). The trial evidence in Rosado showed that, pursuant to the execution of a no-knock warrant, the police entered the defendant’s small apartment and immediately saw him coming out of the bedroom (96 AD3d at 549). Ignoring a call to stop, he ran into the bathroom and slammed the door shut (id.). After breaking open the door, the police found him “hovering” over the toilet {id.). The police found $550 on his *115person in denominations of $20 and $100 dollar bills (id.). Then, upon entering the small bedroom from where defendant had fled, the police saw, in plain view, two plastic containers that held glassine envelopes encased in rice (id.). Looking into the open bedroom closet they saw an additional clear plastic container with a see-through lid, also with glassine envelopes encased in rice (id.). A total of 95 glassines of cocaine and heroin were recovered (id.).
Without any objection from the defendant’s counsel, the jury in Rosado was charged on the drug factory presumption with regard to the charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, which in this case required intent to sell, and seventh-degree possession, which required only simple possession (id. at 548). During its deliberations, the jury inquired whether the “definition of room presumption and constructive possession” applied “equally to the charges of possession in the third degree and the seventh degree,” to which the court answered affirmatively (id.). The defense counsel not only did not object to the subsequent charge but even agreed with the court that the presumption applied to the third and seventh degrees (id. at 550). The jury convicted defendant of the seventh-degree possession counts, but acquitted him of the third-degree counts (id. at 548).
On appeal, the defendant argued that even if the instruction on the drug factory presumption was proper with regard to the charge of third-degree possession (intent to sell), the jury should have been instructed that the presumption did not apply to the charge of seventh-degree possession (simple possession) (id. at 547-548). He argued that the presumption was only intended to apply to possession charges containing a weight or intent element, not simple possession charges (id. at 548). Although this issue was unpreserved, this Court nevertheless considered it “in the interest of justice in order to clarify the scope of the drug factory presumption” (id.). This Court reversed the defendant’s conviction and granted a new trial on the ground that the drug factory presumption was not intended to apply to a seventh-degree possession charge requiring only simple possession, and thus, the jury instruction was erroneous:
“The underlying purpose of the drug factory presumption is to hold criminally responsible those participants in a drug operation who may not be observed in actual physical possession of drugs at *116the moment the police arrive. We note that defendant was acquitted of the third [-] degree possession counts. We do not believe that the drug factory presumption was intended to apply to seventh-degree possession, because implicit in the idea of a drug factory is that drugs are being prepared for sale. Therefore it should only apply to crimes requiring intent to sell, or crimes involving amounts of drugs greater than what is required for misdemeanor possession” {id. [citations omitted]).
In this case, the policy concerns at issue are as strong or even stronger than those involved in Rosado. For this Court has the duty to assure “that where promises are made to induce a defendant’s guilty plea, they are capable of being enforced” (People v Williams, 27 NY3d at 234-235).
The majority is wrong when it argues that Rosado deviates from the alleged “long established precedent regarding the extremely limited circumstances in which we should exercise [our] interest of justice jurisdiction.” Indeed, contrary to the majority’s suggestions, neither the CPL nor case law has established any rigid litmus test as to when we should exercise our interest of justice jurisdiction. “[I]nterest of justice” is nowhere defined in the statute (see CPL 470.15). Instead, as this Court expressed in People v Ramos (33 AD2d 344 [1st Dept 1970]), the Appellate Division’s interest of justice power is “broad” and should be exercised “in accordance with the conscience of the court and with due regard to the interests of the defendant and those of society” {id. at 348). Accordingly, this Court explained, this Court has to look not only at the facts of the particular case but also to its “duty to correct any situation which casts a doubt upon the proper functioning of the courts in the administration of justice” {id.)—a statement remarkably pertinent to this case.
Applying these broad principles in People v Ramos, this Court found that allowing the defendant’s guilty verdict to stand would cast such a “doubt” on the justice system because of the inconsistency between the jury’s verdict and the trial court’s statements of the defendant’s innocence (id.). Specifically, the trial judge stated on the record that he believed the jury’s guilty verdict was erroneous and the defendant was in fact innocent (id. at 346). However, because the Judge did not state his reasons on the record or set aside the verdict, there was nothing for this Court to review (id. at 346, 347-348). *117Nevertheless, this Court exercised its interest of justice review because in the absence of “clear and convincing evidence” of guilt that could remove the Judge’s doubt, reversal was required (id. at 348).
Thus, here, we should similarly exercise our discretion in the interest of justice. We should find, as we held when the case initially came before us on appeal, that “in view of the evident misunderstanding by the trial court and by the parties in this matter, resulting in defendant’s incomplete understanding of the implications of entering a guilty plea, the appropriate course is to permit defendant to withdraw his plea and restore the parties to their status before the plea agreement was reached” (People v Williams, 123 AD3d at 247).
Andrias and Webber, JJ., concur with Tom, J.P.; Renwick and Gesmer, JJ., dissent in an opinion by Renwick, J.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County, rendered January 24, 2012, as amended on February 1, 2012 and February 28, 2012, affirmed.