People v. Kurtz

175 Misc. 2d 980, 670 N.Y.S.2d 1008, 1998 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 71
CourtCriminal Court of the City of New York
DecidedJanuary 27, 1998
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 175 Misc. 2d 980 (People v. Kurtz) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Criminal Court of the City of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Kurtz, 175 Misc. 2d 980, 670 N.Y.S.2d 1008, 1998 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 71 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1998).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Steven W. Paynter, J.

The defendant has moved at the conclusion of the trial in this matter to dismiss the information on the ground that it was improperly amended thereby rendering it facially insufficient and depriving the court of jurisdiction. Similar motions were made when the amendment was effected before another Judge and at a subsequent calendar call before a third Judge.

[981]*981The original information charged the defendant with aggravated harassment in the second degree as well as harassment in the second degree under sections 240.30 and 240.25 of the Penal Law. The defendant was accused of having made phone calls to, and of having engaged in a physical altercation with, the complainant.

These events were charged as having occurred between September 12 and September 16, 1997 during which time the defendant made “numerous” objectionable phone calls to the complainant. The physical harassment was alleged to have occurred on the latter date at about 12:00 p.m.

The People later moved to amend the information to accuse the defendant of having made “two” calls on September 12 and of having engaged in the physical harassment at about 12:00 p.m. on the same date. The court which granted the amendment motion also granted the defendant an adjournment although the case was ready for trial.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

There is scant appellate authority subsequent to the enactment of the Criminal Procedure Law on the issue of the propriety of amendments to informations and misdemeanor complaints. This is surprising in light of the relative frequency with which the People seek to amend these instruments and the regularity with which defense counsel object on the grounds that the procedure is not authorized by statute and that such amendments add unsworn material to the documents originally filed with the court.

Amendment is usually sought in order to change a date or time or location or to change a first name or surname to conform to a supporting deposition. At times, the People seek to insert or delete other factual matter.

CPL 100.45 reads, in pertinent part, as follows:

“Information, prosecutor’s information, misdemeanor complaint; severance, consolidation, amendment, bill of particulars * * *
“(2) The provisions of section 200.70 governing amendment of indictments apply to prosecutor’s informations.
“(3) At any time before the entry of a plea of guilty to or the commencement of a trial of an information, the court may, upon application of the people and with notice to the defendant and opportunity to be heard, order the amendment of the accusatory part of such information by addition of a count charg[982]*982ing an offense supported by the allegations of the factual part of such information and/or any supporting depositions which may accompany it. In such case, the defendant must be accorded any reasonable adjournment necessitated by the amendment.”

Neither of the above subdivisions applies to the instant case since the accusatory instrument filed against the defendant is not a prosecutor’s information (see, CPL 100.10 [3]), nor were the People seeking to add a count based on factual material already found in the instrument as filed.

The Practice Commentaries to the above section state with respect to subdivision (2) that “[the] provision does not apply to an ‘information’ or to a misdemeanor complaint. The original study bills included both of those instruments in this subdivision, but they were dropped, somewhere between the last study bill introduced in 1969 * * * and the legislative enactment in 1970, without explanation” (Preiser, Practice Commentaries, McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 11 A, CPL 100.45, at 289).

One possible explanation for the exclusion of informations as being amendable pursuant to CPL 200.70 lies in the fact that an application of CPL 200.70 (2) (a) to informations would conflict with subdivision (3) of CPL 100.45 which permits the addition of charges.

CPL 200.70, which applies to prosecutor’s informations and indictments, permits amendment under subdivision (1) “with respect to defects, errors or variances from the proof relating to matters of form, time, place, names of persons and the like, when such an amendment does not change the theory or theories of the prosecution as reflected in the evidence before the grand jury which filed such indictment, or otherwise tend to prejudice the defendant on the merits.”

Under subdivision (2), however, no amendment is permitted for the purpose of curing

“(a) [a] failure thereof to charge or state an offense; or

“(b) [Ilegal insufficiency of the factual allegations”.

The Court of Appeals has held that the prohibition in CPL 200.70 (2) (a) against the addition of counts to an indictment applies even when it is clear that the Grand Jury voted the missing charge. (See, People v Perez, 83 NY2d 269.)

The provision of CPL 100.45 (3) authorizing the addition of counts to informations did not appear in the 1967 draft of CPL 50.40 (now CPL 100.45) but was added to the 1968 draft ánd Study Bill (see, Proposed NY Criminal Procedure Law, at 87 [983]*983[Thomson Co. 1967]; Proposed NY Criminal Procedure Law, 1968 Study Bill & Commn Report, at 36 [Thomson Co. 1968]).

This apparent conflict may have been the reason why the rules governing and limiting amendments of indictments in CPL 200.70 were made applicable only to prosecutor’s informations in CPL 100.45 (2) since prosecutor’s informations may be filed at the direction of a Grand Jury (CPL 190.70) and therefore appropriately share whatever limitations may be placed on the amendment of indictments.

The removal of the original application of CPL 200.70 to in-formations and misdemeanor complaints between the Study Bills and the enactment of the CPL therefore appears to have been deliberate.

It can be argued that the fact that the statute governing the amendment of informations (CPL 100.45) lists only one type pertaining to informations, i.e., the addition of counts in subdivision (3), means that other types of amendment are prohibited since “ [t] he maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius is applied in the construction of the statutes, so that where a law expressly describes a particular act, thing or person to which it shall apply, an irrefutable inference must be drawn that what is omitted or not included was intended to be omitted or excluded” (McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 240).

The only other CPL reference to the amendment of informations appears in CPL 170.35 which addresses the motion to dismiss lower court accusatory instruments as defective. It reads, in part, as follows:

“(1) An information, a simplified information, a prosecutor’s information or a misdemeanor complaint, or a count thereof, is defective within the meaning of paragraph (a) of subdivision one of section 170.30 when:
“(a) It is not sufficient on its face pursuant to the requirements of section 100.40; provided that such an instrument or count may not be dismissed as defective, but must instead be amended, where the defect or irregularity is of a kind that may be cured by amendment and where the People move to so amend”.

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Bluebook (online)
175 Misc. 2d 980, 670 N.Y.S.2d 1008, 1998 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 71, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-kurtz-nycrimct-1998.