People v. Horvath

37 A.D.3d 33, 825 N.Y.S.2d 757
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York·Decided December 12, 2006·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Fisher, J.

The issue presented on this appeal concerns the consequences of a failure to comply with the statutory requirement that a defendant, alleged to be in violation of probation, be brought promptly before the court to answer the declaration of delinquency. The essential facts are undisputed.

For 13 months beginning on June 1, 1991, the defendant worked as office manager for Dr. Surinder E Jindal in Fishkill, New York. Over that period, she stole several checks made out to her employer, endorsing and depositing them in her own bank account. The stolen checks totaled in excess of $3,000. The defendant was arrested and ultimately pleaded guilty in County Court, Dutchess County, to a superior court information charging her with grand larceny in the third degree.

On November 15, 1995, the court sentenced the defendant to a term of five years probation, and later transferred probation supervision to the City of New York, where the defendant then lived and worked. The defendant concedes that she stopped reporting to her probation officer sometime in September of 1998, and also ceased making required restitution payments. Additionally, on May 24, 1999, the defendant was arrested for larceny in the State of Connecticut.

On October 6,1999, the Supreme Court, Kings County, filed a declaration of delinquency against the defendant alleging that [35]*35she had violated the terms and conditions of her probationary sentence. A bench warrant for her arrest was issued that same day.

That bench warrant had not yet been executed when, on March 8, 2000, and again on April 26, 2000, the defendant was arrested in New York County on additional larceny charges. She was convicted of grand larceny in the third degree and, on September 15, 2000, was sentenced to an indeterminate term of from 3 to 6 years imprisonment. Before the imposition of that sentence, the New York City Department of Probation (hereinafter the Probation Department) prepared a presentence investigation report dated September 14, 2000, which noted, inter alia, that the defendant was on probation for a felony conviction of grand larceny in the third degree. Following her sentencing, the defendant was transferred to the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and was continuously held there as an inmate beginning on September 25, 2000. Nevertheless, she was not produced in the Supreme Court, Kings County, to answer the declaration of delinquency until May 9, 2002.

Upon being brought before the court, the defendant did not challenge either the timeliness of the declaration of delinquency or the allegation that she had violated the terms and conditions of her probation. Instead, she argued that, owing to the failure to produce her promptly on the declaration of delinquency, the court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate her in violation of probation. Specifically, her attorney argued that there was

“a question as to the jurisdiction of [the] court based upon the failure of the [Probation Department] to exercise due diligence when it had actual knowledge of [the defendant’s] incarceration and her impending receipt of a sentence of three to six since the [Probation Department] prepared a presentence report, and within that presentence report it actually stated that [the defendant] was currently on probation.”

Thereafter, the defendant filed a formal motion to dismiss the matter on the ground of lack of jurisdiction.

The Probation Department opposed the motion, arguing that it had been diligent in producing the defendant in court after it had located her in the Bedford Hills facility on April 19, 2002. The Probation Department, however, offered no explanation for its failure to locate the defendant there earlier, or to have her produced in Kings County to answer the declaration of delinquency while she was awaiting sentence in New York County. [36]*36Nevertheless, the Probation Department maintained that the defendant’s motion to dismiss should be denied because any delay in producing her was reasonable and because, in any event, the defendant had suffered no demonstrable prejudice by reason of the delay. The Supreme Court denied the motion, finding that the delay in producing the defendant was not unreasonable.

Thereafter, the defendant admitted that she had violated the terms and conditions of her probationary sentence by having been convicted of grand larceny in the third degree in New York County while on probation. On August 2, 2002, the court revoked her probation and resentenced her to an indeterminate term of from 1 to 3 years imprisonment to run consecutive to the sentence she was then serving on the New York County conviction. The defendant appeals from the amended judgment.

The defendant’s principal claim on appeal, as it was in the Supreme Court, is that, by reason of the delay in producing her to answer the allegations in the declaration of delinquency, the Supreme Court lost jurisdiction to adjudicate her in violation of probation. We note at the outset that, although the argument is framed in terms of the court’s jurisdiction, a claim that a probationer was not promptly brought before the court following the filing of a declaration of delinquency is subject to the usual rules of preservation (see People v Douglas, 94 NY2d 807, 808 [1999]; People v Williams, 19 AD3d 868, 869 [2005]). Here, the claim was fully preserved for appellate review.

CPL 410.30 provides that, upon finding reasonable cause to believe that a defendant has violated a condition of his or her sentence of probation, and after filing a written declaration of delinquency, “the court must promptly take reasonable and appropriate action to cause the defendant to appear before it for the purpose of enabling the court to make a final determination with respect to the alleged delinquency” (emphasis supplied). Moreover, CPL 410.40 (2) provides that, when a court issues a warrant in connection with a violation of probation, the warrant must direct that the defendant be brought before the court “without unnecessary delay” (emphasis supplied). CPL 410.70 (1) provides that a defendant is entitled to a hearing on his or her alleged violation of probation “promptly after the court has filed a declaration of delinquency” (emphasis supplied).

It is undisputed that the declaration of delinquency in this case was timely filed. Thus, the critical inquiry is whether the defendant was thereafter promptly brought before the court to [37]*37answer its accusations in compliance with CPL 410.30 and 410.70. Under the circumstances presented, we find that she was not.

Unsurprisingly, the statutes that prescribe when a probationer must be brought before the court to answer a declaration of delinquency do not define “promptly” or “without unnecessary delay.” We believe, however, that these terms must be interpreted in a way that conforms with fundamental principles of due process.

Like a proceeding to determine whether a parolee has violated parole, a proceeding to determine whether a probationer has violated the terms and conditions of probation is not considered a stage of a criminal prosecution (see Gagnon v Scarpelli, 411 US 778, 782 [1973]; Morrissey v Brewer, 408 US 471, 480 [1972]), and therefore constitutional and statutory speedy trial guarantees do not strictly apply.

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People v. Horvath, 37 A.D.3d 33, 825 N.Y.S.2d 757 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2006).

37 A.D.3d 33 (People v. Horvath) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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