Court Opinion

ID: 9804506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 16:53:04.325859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:14:58.000795
License: Public Domain

Tom, J.P.
(dissenting). In exchange for his guilty plea, defendant was promised a three-year determinate sentence followed by a two-year period of postrelease supervision with the proviso that he not commit another crime before sentence was pronounced, among other conditions. The court explicitly advised defendant that if he violated the condition, “I don’t have to give you the three years with the two years. I might, but I don’t have to, and I could theoretically sentence you up to 12 years.” Defendant committed a subsequent crime, and the court imposed a six-year term of imprisonment. Because defendant’s criminal history includes a previous violent felony conviction, the minimum sentence that could be imposed is six years, and he was subject to a maximum period of imprisonment of 15 years. Thus, the court’s three-year promised sentence was an unlawful sentence.
Defendant did not move to withdraw his plea or otherwise preserve his present challenges to its voluntariness (see People v Lopez, 71 NY2d 662, 665 [1988]). He now contends that he was induced to plead guilty by the promise of an unlawful sentence *248in violation of his due process rights (citing People v Selikoff, 35 NY2d 227, 238 [1974], cert denied 419 US 1122 [1975]; People v Bullard, 84 AD2d 845 [2d Dept 1981]) and that preservation is unnecessary because the promise of a sentence the court could not lawfully impose rendered his guilty plea less than knowing, voluntary and intelligent (citing People v Hill, 9 NY3d 189, 191 [2007], cert denied 553 US 1048 [2008]). Defendant’s objections, which are unpreserved, should not be considered in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, his argument is without merit and affords no basis for reversal.
A defendant generally has the right to withdraw a plea if a court makes a sentencing promise it cannot fulfill or fails to inform a defendant of a direct consequence of his plea (see People v DeValle, 94 NY2d 870, 872 [2000]; People v Williams, 87 NY2d 1014, 1015 [1996]). Counsel did not move to withdraw defendant’s plea or argue, even when the final six-year sentence'was imposed, that the plea had been induced by the promise of an unlawful sentence. Further, defendant does not challenge the effectiveness of counsel in failing to seek to withdraw the guilty plea (see DeValle, 94 NY2d at 872).
Where a defendant does not move to withdraw his plea, a sentencing court nevertheless has the inherent power to correct an illegal sentence (DeValle, 94 NY2d at 871-872; Williams, 87 NY2d at 1015; People v Donaldson, 117 AD3d 1467, 1468 [4th Dept 2014], lv denied 23 NY3d 1036 [2014]). Thus, the illegality of the promised sentence does not, in itself, render a defendant’s guilty plea unknowing and involuntary. However, since the enhanced sentence was lawful, defendant’s plea did not violate his due process rights. In Williams, the Supreme Court, sua sponte, resentenced defendant to 3½ to 10½ years pursuant to a guilty plea to burglary in the second degree because the sentence of 3½ to 7 years originally imposed was unlawful. The Court of Appeals, in rejecting the defendant’s double jeopardy argument stated, “That claim would be colorable only if the defendant’s sentence had been increased beyond his legitimate expectations of what the final sentence should be” (Williams, 87 NY2d at 1015; see also People v Collier, 22 NY3d 429, 433-434 [2013], cert denied 573 US —, 134 S Ct 2730 [2014]). More specifically, in Collier the Court of Appeals held that
“if the originally promised sentence cannot be imposed in strict compliance with the plea agreement, the sentencing court may impose another lawful sentence that comports with the defendant’s le*249gitimate expectations. Again, ‘the reasonable understanding and expectations of the parties, rather than technical distinctions in semantics, control the question of whether a particular sentence imposed violates a plea agreement’ ” (id. at 434, quoting Gammarano v United States, 732 F2d 273, 276 [2d Cir 1984]).
Here, defendant was told that he could receive up to 12 years’ imprisonment if he failed to comply with the conditions set by the court. Thus, contrary to the majority’s flawed reasoning, the six-year statutory minimum sentence finally imposed after defendant violated the conditions of the plea was clearly within the legitimate expected sentencing range of up to 12 years (Collier, 22 NY3d at 434; see also DeValle, 94 NY2d at 871-872). The majority focuses exclusively on the promised sentence of three years, ignoring the conditional part of the plea agreement and the fact that defendant never moved to withdraw his plea. Since defendant violated the conditions of the plea agreement and did not move to withdraw his plea, he was no longer entitled to the three year sentence and cannot argue that the period of imprisonment finally imposed was not within the expected sentencing range of up to 12 years. Because the final sentence was lawful and within the expectations of the parties, defendant’s plea did not violate his due process rights.
Defendant did not preserve his present claim by interjecting a timely protest so as to afford the trial court an opportunity to address the asserted error at a time when corrective action could be taken (CPL 220.60 [3]; Lopez, 71 NY2d at 666). It is the obligation of counsel to carefully review the terms of the plea and determine whether the proposed sentence legally conforms with defendant’s guilty plea and predicate felony offender status to be able to adequately advise the client to accept or reject the proffered plea. Nor does this matter represent the “rare case” where preservation is not required, either because the sentencing court’s attention should be immediately drawn to a discrepancy in a defendant’s allocution that negates an essential element of the crime or because the court failed in its duty to advise the defendant of a direct consequence of entering a guilty plea (People v Louree, 8 NY3d 541, 545 [2007]). Significantly, the cases relied upon by defendant and cited by the majority involve the court’s dereliction of this duty (see Hill, 9 NY3d at 191 [failure to advise defendant of period of postrelease supervision]; People v Van Deusen, 7 NY3d 744 *250[2006] [same]; People v Catu, 4 NY3d 242 [2005] [same]; People v Gina M. M., 40 NY2d 595, 597 [1976] [incorrect advice regarding consequences of plea on defendant’s criminal record]).
Moreover, no unlawful sentence was imposed that requires correction, because defendant failed to comply with the condition imposed by the court and the contemplated sentence was never available to him. Even if defendant had fulfilled the condition to be entitled to receive the promised sentence, it is settled that a “[defendant cannot rely on a promise by the court to impose a sentence which it could not lawfully impose” (Bullard, 84 AD2d at 845), and “[the] courts have the inherent power to remedy an illegal sentence by permitting modification to bring the sentence within the . . . sentencing range that the defendant understood would be available upon conviction” (People v Richardson, 100 NY2d 847, 851 [2003]).
People v Johnson (23 NY3d 973 [2014]), cited by the majority, is clearly distinguishable. First, the defendant preserved his objection by making a timely motion to withdraw his plea. In addition, it was not confusion over the sentence that rendered the plea less than knowing, intelligent and voluntary but confusion over the crime to which the plea was entered.
Freedman and Clark, JJ., concur with Renwick, J.; Tom, J.P., and Andrias, J., dissent in a separate opinion by Tom, J.P.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Edward J. McLaughlin, J.), rendered January 24, 2012, as amended on February 1, 2012 and February 28, 2012, reversed, on the law, the plea vacated, and the matter remanded for further proceedings.