People ex rel. Maxian on Behalf of Roundtree v. Brown

• Decision Date: 30 October 1990
• Citation: 561 N.Y.S.2d 418,164 A.D.2d 56
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of New York ex rel. Michele MAXIAN on behalf of Damon ROUNDTREE, et al., Petitioners-Respondents, v. Lee BROWN, Commissioner, New York City Police Department; James Hunter, Acting Commissioner, New York City Department of Correction; or anyone having custody of petitioners, Respondents-Appellants. PEOPLE of the State of New York ex rel. Martin MURPHY on behalf of James LOVELLS, et al., Petitioners-Respondents, v. Lee BROWN, Commissioner, New York City Police Department; Allyn Sielaff, Acting Commissioner, New York City Department of Correction; or anyone having custody of petitioners, Respondents-Appellants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 418

561 N.Y.S.2d 418

164 A.D.2d 56

PEOPLE of the State of New York ex rel. Michele MAXIAN on behalf of Damon ROUNDTREE, et al., Petitioners-Respondents, v. Lee BROWN, Commissioner, New York City Police Department;

James Hunter, Acting Commissioner, New York City Department

of Correction; or anyone having custody of petitioners,

Respondents-Appellants.

PEOPLE of the State of New York ex rel. Martin MURPHY on behalf of James LOVELLS, et al., Petitioners-Respondents, v. Lee BROWN, Commissioner, New York City Police Department;

Allyn Sielaff, Acting Commissioner, New York City

Department of Correction; or anyone

having custody of petitioners,

Respondents-Appellants.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division First Department.

Oct. 30, 1990.

Fay Leoussis, of counsel (Leonard Koerner, Francis F. Caputo and Stephen J. McGrath with her on the brief; (Victor A. Kovner, attorney), for respondents-appellants

Michele Maxian, of counsel (Susan L. Hendricks and Ivar Goldart with her on the brief; Robert M. Baum, attorney), for petitioners-respondents

Henry J. Steinglass, (Ursula Bentele with him on the brief), for New York Crim. Bar Ass'n, New York State Ass'n of Crim. Defense Lawyers, and Nat. Ass'n of Crim. Defense Lawyers, as amici curiae.

Before MURPHY, P.J., and KASSAL, ELLERIN, Bundy SMITH and RUBIN, JJ.

MURPHY, Presiding Justice.

Petitioners in these consolidated habeas corpus proceedings are persons arrested without warrants and thereafter detained by the police for varying periods while awaiting arraignment. Petitioners have challenged the legality of their prearraignment detention arguing, in reliance upon certain state statutory and constitutional provisions, that their detention was impermissibly prolonged. It is not disputed that among the petitioners are numerous persons held by the police in prearraignment custody for more than 24 hours and that, of these, some were detained in excess of 72 hours, and a few for more than 90 hours. While all of the petitioners had been either arraigned or released as of the argument of this appeal, the within proceedings raise important issues as to the limitations imposed by state law upon prearraignment detention. As these are novel issues, classically "capable of repetition, yet evading review" (Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 110 n. 11, 95 S.Ct. 854, 861 n. 11, 43 L.Ed.2d 54) due to the temporary nature of the challenged detention, appellate consideration is not foreclosed by the mootness doctrine (Williams v. Ward, 845 F.2d 374, 380 n. 6).

Section 140.20 of the Criminal Procedure Law provides in relevant part:

1. Upon arresting a person without a warrant, a police officer, after performing without unnecessary delay all recording, fingerprinting and other preliminary police duties required in the particular case, must, except as otherwise provided in this section, without unnecessary delay bring the arrested person or cause him to be brought before a local criminal court and file therewith an appropriate accusatory instrument charging him with the offense or offenses in question. (emphasis added)

In People ex rel Roundtree v. Brown, the first of the two decisions presented for our review, Justice Soloff, in a thorough and well-reasoned opinion, held that in applying the above-quoted provision it would be presumed that an arraignment delayed for more than 24 hours was "unnecessarily delayed" within the meaning of the statute. Justice Soloff was careful to explain that the presumption, once raised in the context of a habeas corpus proceeding, would be rebuttable, but only upon a showing by the respondent that there was an acceptable explanation for the delay. Failing such an explanation, the petitioner was entitled to be released. Justice Soloff's holding in Roundtree was subsequently followed by Justice McQuillan in People ex rel Murphy (Lovells) v. Brown, the second of the decisions here to be reviewed.

Respondents-appellants take issue with Justice Soloff's construction of CPL 140.20(1). Finding no mention of any 24 hour limitation on prearraignment detention within the statute, they claim that Justice Soloff essentially rewrote the statute to impose a rigid limitation where none had been prescribed by the legislature.

While we agree with respondents that the legislature did not mandate in CPL 140.20(1) that arraignments take place within any unvarying interval following a warrantless arrest, we think it clear that Justice Soloff did not do so either. Nothing in Roundtree may be fairly read to impose an inflexible time limit on prearraignment detention. All that was done in Roundtree was to establish a means for arrestees to vindicate their unarguable right to be arraigned without unnecessary delay. Clearly, so long as a presumption of regularity attends prearraignment detention it will be, practically speaking, impossible for arrestees to challenge their detention as unnecessarily prolonged. An arrestee cannot be expected to know why his arraignment has been delayed, yet such knowledge is obviously indispensable to litigating the question of whether the delay was necessary. Until he is entitled to demand an explanation from the only party in a position to know the reason for the delay namely his custodian, he will be unable to argue that the delay was unnecessary. It seems plain then that if CPL 140.20(1) is to confer any enforceable benefit on those held pending arraignment, there must be a point at which the presumption of regularity gives way and the arrestee may, therefore, require his custodian to come forward with an explanation for the delay in arraignment. Indeed, unless we wish to entertain the suggestion that CPL 140.20(1) is nothing more than a hortatory flourish, there does not appear to be any question that there must come a time at which prearraignment delay is presumed to be unnecessary. The more difficult question is when this presumption may be said to arise.

As we understand it, it is the respondents' position that no presumption of irregularity ought to attach to their actions as custodians of those awaiting arraignment until 72 hours have passed. In support of this position, respondents rely heavily upon the decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Williams v. Ward, 845 F.2d 374 cert. den. 488 U.S. 1020, 109 S.Ct. 818, 102 L.Ed.2d 807. The Williams court held that in New York City it would be permissible to delay the determination of probable cause required by the Fourth Amendment until an arraignment held as long as 72 hours after a warrantless arrest.

While Williams v. Ward doubtless settles the question of what constitutes the maximum period of post-arrest detention which may be permitted in this jurisdiction in advance of a probable cause determination, it is notably silent upon the issue fundamentally posed by CPL 140.20(1), namely the point at which it can be said that an arraignment has been unnecessarily delayed. It is, of course, true that the time reasonably necessary to arraign an arrestee will vary. As pointed out, however, the utility of CPL 140.20(1) as a meaningful limitation on prearraignment detention requires that there be some generally recognized point beyond which prearraignment detention is presumptively unnecessary, a point at which the detainee may, without more, hail his custodians into court and require that the reasons for his continued detention without arraignment be set on the record and evaluated.

The inquiry as to the time reasonably necessary to bring an arrestee to arraignment would seem, in the first instance, to be one of a factual sort. This is to say that we would seek to know by empirical investigation the actual time within which the administrative steps precedent to arraignment could be achieved within our jurisdiction by a reasonably diligent and efficient custodial authority. The court's determination in Williams v. Ward did not rest on such an inquiry. Indeed, the findings made by the District Court in Williams ¹, although presented as findings of fact respecting the time needed to prepare for arraignment, were characterized by the Circuit Court as conclusions of law (Williams, supra at 382) and thereafter rejected as legally unsound. In the end, no findings were made as to the length of time reasonably needed to bring an arrestee for arraignment. Rather, the Circuit Court's position seems to have been that, regardless of the amount of time actually necessary to perform the steps precedent to arraignment, it had already been decided, as a matter of law, that it was constitutionally permissible to hold an arrestee for 72 hours before determining at arraignment whether his arrest was supported by probable cause. In support of this position, the Circuit Court observed that the Supreme Court in Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 had cited with approval the ALI draft Model Code of Prearraignment Procedure which, at least in the Circuit Court's view, did not absolutely require arraignment until 72 hours after arrest. The Circuit Court also relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253, 104 S.Ct. 2403, 81 L.Ed.2d 207. There, the Supreme Court upheld as constitutional provisions of the New York Family Court Act which the Circuit Court thought sanctioned the detention of juveniles for up to 72 hours before probable cause for their arrest had to be established. The Circuit Court stated, "Schall's acceptance of up to a seventy-two-hour period between an initial appearance and a probable-cause hearing under the Family Court Act reinforces, if not compels, our conclusion that prearraignment detention of seventy-two hours is constitutionally permissible in the instant case" (Williams, supra at 388).

Whatever our reservations about the Second Circuit's reading of Gerstein and Schall ², the relevant point in the context of the present discussion, is that Williams was decided solely upon the precedential significance the court...