People v. Chambers
| Decision Date | 18 September 1986 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Frederick CHAMBERS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
S.R. Kaplan, New York City, for respondent.
D.C. Yamada, New York City, for defendant-appellant.
Before KUPFERMAN, J.P., and CARRO, KASSAL, ELLERIN and WALLACH, JJ.
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Vincent A. Vitale, J.), rendered July 1, 1985, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of the crime of manslaughter in the first degree and sentencing him to an indeterminate term of imprisonment of from five to fifteen years is modified, as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, to an indeterminate term of from four to twelve years, and as so modified, affirmed.
On March 22, 1984, defendant was indicted for the crime of murder in the second degree arising from his killing of Omar Madden, his common law brother-in-law, on March 7, 1984, after a heated argument in the family home. On March 15, 1985, pursuant to a negotiated plea, defendant was permitted to plead guilty to the crime of manslaughter in the first degree with the express understanding that the court would impose a five to fifteen year term. On July 1, 1985, the court sentenced defendant in accordance with that understanding, and this appeal seeking mitigation of the sentence followed.
Ordinarily, of course, where defendant effects a plea bargain and receives the precise sentence that was promised, he should not later be heard to complain that he received what he bargained for (People v. McCullers, 40 A.D.2d 796, 797, 338 N.Y.S.2d 63; affd. 33 N.Y.2d 806, 350 N.Y.S.2d 904, 305 N.E.2d 914). Here, however, there are special circumstances deserving of recognition. The presentence report from the Probation Department revealed that this defendant, 28 years old at the time of sentence, had never been in trouble with the law before, had a creditable employment record and a strong family life with a fully supportive wife, and that during the period from his arrest to the time of sentencing he had compiled an extraordinary record of academic and service achievement on Rikers Island. The Director of the Correctional Education Center at Rikers wrote to the court that during the one-year period of his pre-sentence detention defendant "earned a high school equivalency diploma, served as a tutor in the computer literacy class, developed and edited an...
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