The People v. Dwight Giles / The People v. Sean Hawkins

25 N.E.3d 943, 24 N.Y.3d 1066, 2 N.Y.S.3d 30

• Court: New York Court of Appeals
• Decided: December 19, 2014
• Docket: 226/227
• Status: Published

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

Memorandum.

In People v Giles, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed. In People v Hawkins, the order of the Appellate Term should be affirmed.

Defendants’ motions to set aside the verdict pursuant to CPL 330.30 (1) were procedurally improper because they were premised on matters outside the existing trial record, and CPL 330.30 (1) did not permit defendants to expand the record to include matters that did not “appear[ ] in the record” prior to the filing of the motions. We express no opinion on whether a trial court has the authority to consider a CPL 330.30 (1) motion as a premature de facto CPL 440.10 motion in certain cases because defendants here did not ask the trial courts to consider their motions as such, and in each case, the trial court neither deemed the motion to be a premature CPL 440.10 motion nor decided the motion in accordance with the criteria and procedures delineated in CPL 440.30 (cf. People v Wolf, 98 NY2d 105, 118-119 [2002]). In People v Giles, defendant’s challenge to the constitutionality of his sentencing as a persistent felony offender is without merit (see People v Bell, 15 NY3d 935, 936 [2010]; People v Battles, 16 NY3d 54, 59 [2010]; People v Quinones, 12 NY3d 116, 129-130 [2009]).