Court Opinion

ID: 9525935
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:09:41.255809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:17:36.720802
License: Public Domain

R.S. Smith, J.
(dissenting). “Incarcerated” is not an ambiguous word. It means locked up in prison. Defendant in this case was not incarcerated during the time in question. He not only worked outside the prison walls, but ate and slept in an “approved residence” — which can mean, and in this case apparently did mean, the home of his family (see 7 NYCRR 1925.2, 1927.4, 1901.1 [c] [2] [i] [a]). The facts relied on by the majority — that defendant was required to report to a certain location daily, to undergo frequent drug tests, perhaps to participate in rehabilitative programs, and to sign a document to the effect *652that his nonincarcerated status “may be revoked at any time” (majority op at 650) — do not alter the simple fact that he was not incarcerated.
Relying on the phrase “extended bounds of confinement” — a phrase used in the Correction Law in a different context (see Correction Law § 851 [10]) — the majority essentially turns the word “incarcerated” into a metaphor. Because defendant was not free to go anywhere he liked, the majority reasons, he was in a sense “confined,” and “in that sense ‘incarcerated’ ” (majority op at 650). But there is no reason to think that the Legislature was speaking metaphorically when, in Penal Law § 70.06 (1) (b) (v), it excluded “any period of time during which the person was incarcerated” from the 10-year period prescribed in the statute governing second felony offenders (Penal Law § 70.06 [1] [b] [iv]).
The point of the exclusion is obvious: People who are incarcerated have little opportunity to commit felonies, and so do not get credit for the time in which they did not do so. The opportunities for criminal conduct by a person no longer incarcerated — even if he is required to report daily to a specified location — are incomparably greater. Defendant’s situation during his time in the day reporting program was not greatly different from that of someone on probation or parole — who, it is undisputed, is not “incarcerated” within the meaning of this statute. The line the majority draws is thus less satisfactory than the one the Legislature drew — between people who are in prison and who are not.
Judges Ciparick, Rosenblatt, Graffeo and Read concur with Chief Judge Kaye; Judge Smith dissents in a separate opinion; Judge Pigott taking no part.
Order affirmed.