People v. Hudson

26 Misc. 3d 384
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 29, 2009
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 26 Misc. 3d 384 (People v. Hudson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Hudson, 26 Misc. 3d 384 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 2009).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Michael H. Melkonian, J.

In 1986 defendant was convicted after trial in Kings County of the violent felonies of robbery in the first degree and robbery in the second degree. He was sentenced on each count to an indeterminate term of imprisonment of 3V3 to 10 years, with those sentences to run concurrently with each other.

Defendant was released on parole and in 1992 he was arrested again and indicted for two counts of robbery in the first degree, robbery in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second and third degrees. On the third day of his trial, defendant pleaded guilty to robbery in the first degree with the promise that he would receive an indeterminate term of imprisonment of 10 to 20 years.

On the date of sentence, the court file was unavailable.1 The assigned judge asked if the file was necessary for the defendant to be sentenced. The judge stated, “He pled guilty to robbery in the first degree, the second count of the indictment. He is a second violent felony offender. The predicate statement should have been filed.” The Assistant District Attorney replied, “Your Honor, I didn’t file the predicate felony statement because under his plea he can be sentenced to the ten to twenty.” The judge stated, “Okay, fine. Then let’s just arraign him for sentence.” Thereafter, the defendant was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.

Upon his return to state prison, the New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) realized that defendant was a second violent felony offender and it computed his time to run consecutively to the time he still owed on his 1986 Kings County conviction. In 2006, defendant wrote to the inmate records coordinator of his facility and to the Deputy Commissioner of DOCS, seeking to have his time recalculated to reflect that [386]*386the sentence on his 1992 indictment should run concurrently with the sentence from his 1986 indictment because he was not adjudicated a second violent felony offender. In February 2007, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York wrote to the Deputy Commissioner reiterating defendant’s request for the recalculation of his time. Defendant’s time was recalculated to reflect his sentences running concurrently with each other and, due to that change, he was released on March 22, 2007. The difference between running defendant’s sentences concurrently, as opposed to consecutively, was that for concurrent sentences defendant’s earliest conditional release date would have been September 1, 2005. If those sentences were calculated to run consecutively, defendant’s earliest conditional release date would be October 4, 2009. After his 2007 release from state prison, defendant filed suit against the State of New York seeking compensation for wrongful confinement for the time period between September 2005 and March 2007.

By letter dated April 2, 2009, DOCS wrote to the court stating that the failure to sentence defendant as a second violent felony offender appeared to render his sentence invalid as a matter of law. The DOCS letter states that “[t]his matter was not brought to the attention of the District Attorney’s Office when it came to light in 2007 because the one-year time limit set forth in CPL 440.40 (1) had long since expired.” The letter further explains that this matter was now brought to the court’s attention in light of the Court of Appeals decision in People v Sparber (10 NY3d 457 [2008]), which acknowledges the Court’s inherent authority to correct its own errors. Thereafter, this court calendared the case, notified defense counsel and the District Attorney’s Office and made arrangements to have the defendant produced.2

When apprised of DOCS’ concerns regarding the failure to adjudicate defendant a second violent felony offender, defendant filed a motion opposing resentencing, arguing that the “Court is without authority to correct Mr. Hudson’s sentence.” Defendant states that to do so is prohibited by the Criminal Procedure Law, a violation of his constitutional right against double jeop[387]*387ardy, a violation of his due process right to be free from vindictive prosecution and fundamentally unfair.

Defendant argues that CPL 440.40 (1) and People v Medina (35 AD3d 163 [1st Dept 2006], lv denied 8 NY3d 925 [2007]), preclude the People from filing a predicate statement at this juncture. In Medina (supra), the prosecutor belatedly realized that the defendant’s prior felony qualified as a predicate felony despite the passage of time between his felony convictions. However, at that point, it was the People’s time within which to file a motion to correct the sentence, as prescribed by CPL 440.40 (1), that had expired. Despite the expiration of the one-year time period, the trial court adjudicated the defendant a second felony offender and resentenced him as such. The Appellate Division reversed, holding that the trial court’s only authority to resentence a defendant upon the People’s motion is found in CPL 440.40 (1). It held that the trial court had acted without authority because more than one year had elapsed between the time of the original sentence and the People’s application for resentence. (Id.)

Defendant asserts that where a defendant has a legitimate expectation of the finality of his sentence, resentencing violates the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the New York State and Federal Constitutions. He states that “the expiration of the statutory period for a prosecutor to appeal a sentence gives a defendant an ‘expectation of finality’ even when the sentence imposed was otherwise illegal.” Defendant reasons that because neither DOCS nor the People previously sought his resentencing and because he was paroled two years ago, “he legitimately believed that he had completed his prison sentence.”

Defendant claims that resentencing would be vindictive because DOCS only seeks resentencing since “Mr. Hudson exercised his right to seek civil compensation for his wrongful confinement of two years.” He states that his right to due process will be violated if he is punished for pursuing a civil suit against the State when the law plainly allows for it. Defendant argues that the court is precluded from resentencing him because a presumption of vindictiveness attaches when any action that would be detrimental to a defendant is taken in retaliation for his exercising his legal right. Finally, defendant submits that to resentence him now would be unfair. He argues that he was properly released and to return him to custody would be cruel.

The People’s response argues that defendant’s original sentence was illegal and the court should exercise its authority [388]*388to resentence him. The People argue that a trial court has inherent authority to correct an illegal sentence. The People state that “defendant has long been aware that his sentence should have included a finding that he was a second violent felony offender” and he should now be adjudicated as such and resentenced accordingly.

The People argue that the Appellate Division’s decision in Medina (supra) is not controlling here. The People state that the subsequent Court of Appeals decisions in People v Sparber (10 NY3d 457 [2008]) and Matter of Garner v New York State Dept. of Correctional Servs. (10 NY3d 358 [2008]) hold that where a mandatory component of a defendant’s sentence is omitted, the court has the authority to resentence the defendant to correct that omission.

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Related

Hudson v. State
35 Misc. 3d 241 (New York State Court of Claims, 2011)

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Bluebook (online)
26 Misc. 3d 384, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-hudson-nysupct-2009.