People v. Chirieleison
| Citation | 3 N.Y.2d 170,164 N.Y.S.2d 726,143 N.E.2d 914 |
| Parties | , 143 N.E.2d 914 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Ralph CHIRIELEISON, Respondent. |
| Decision Date | 03 July 1957 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals |
Edward S. Silver, Dist. Atty., Brooklyn (William I. Siegel, Brooklyn, of counsel), for appellant.
Louis Jay Brecher, New York City, for respondent.
The defendant was indicted in 1950 by a Kings County grand jury for the crime of robbery in the first degree committed in June of that year. He was arraigned and pleaded not guilty. Shortly thereafter, by reason of a conviction in New York County, he was sentenced to imprisonment in state prison for five years. In June of 1955, having served that sentence, he was returned to the Kings County Court for trial on the 1950 charge. Several months later, in October, he moved, through counsel, to dismiss the indictment of the ground that he had been denied his right to a speedy trial. We had not yet decided the Prosser case (People v. Prosser, 309 N.Y. 353, 130 N.E.2d 891) and the trial judge denied the motion.
Following our decision in Prosser on December 1, 1955, the defendant again moved to dismiss the indictment. The district attorney made an oral statement, apparently designed to show that there had been adjournments of the trial at defendant's instance, but no papers were submitted in opposition. The motion was again denied, the court writing an opinion in which it opined that the defendant had waived his rights because the case had been marked 'ready' on several occasions without objection from his counsel.
Shortly after denial of that motion, the defendant filed a notice of appeal to the Appellate Division from the order entered in the county court, but the Appellate Division dismissed the appeal upon the ground that the order was intermediate in nature and not appealable. The defendant then pleaded guilty to the crime of petit larceny and was sentenced to the New York City Penitentiary, execution of the sentnece being suspended.
He thereupon appealed from that judgment of conviction and brought up for review the order of the county court denying his motion to dismiss the indictment. The Appellate Division reversed the order 'on the law,' granted the motion and dismissed the indictment on the ground that the defendant had been denied his right to a speedy trial by reason of the five-year lapse between indictment and any attempt to bring him to trial.
The assistant district attorney who argued the appeal, following highest traditions, forthrightly acknowledged that the five-year delay was a denial of the speedy trial guarantee and declared that, had the defendant moved for dismissal of the indictment upon his return from prison, the court would have had no alternative but to grant the motion. However, it is urged that the defendant waived his right to trial by pleading guilty and, accordingly, was not privileged to complain that he had not been brought to trial promptly.
Under other and different circumstances a plea may constitute a waiver of the right to a speedy trial and deprive the defendant of whatever remedy he might otherwise have had. Here, shortly after his return to Kings County and his obtaining an attorney, the defendant moved to dismiss the indictment because of the five-year delay. The Prosser case, supra, 309 N.Y. 353, 130 N.E.2d 891, as already noted, had not at that time been decided, but counsel called it to the attention of the county court judge. Be that as it may, the motion was denied. Our decision in Prosser came down; the motion to dismiss was made again; it was again denied and the defendant appealed from the resulting order to have his rights declared by an appellate court.
When that appeal was dismissed upon grounds of non-finality, the defendant could, of course, have stood trial and, if he had, the district attorney recognizes, the 'defense' of waiver could not have...
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People v. White
...trial (see, e.g., People v. Dwight S., 29 N.Y.2d 172, 175, 324 N.Y.S.2d 58, 60, 272 N.E.2d 558, 559; People v. Chirieleison, 3 N.Y.2d 170, 173, 164 N.Y.S.2d 726, 727, 143 N.E.2d 914, 915; Becker v. State of Nebraska, 435 F.2d 157, 158, 8 Cir., cert. den. 402 U.S. 981, 91 S.Ct. 1684, 29 L.Ed......
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People v. Siciliano
...conclusion would exalt form over substance and constitute a myopic view of the relevant circumstances. People v. Chirieleison, 3 N.Y.2d 170, 164 N.Y.S.2d 726, 143 N.E.2d 914 (1957) further supports our determination that defendants have not waived their constitutional challenge by pleading ......
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People v. Gooden
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