People v. Drayton
| Decision Date | 28 April 1975 |
| Citation | 47 A.D.2d 952,367 N.Y.S.2d 506 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Arthur DRAYTON, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Singer & Block, Brooklyn (Nathan Schwartz, Brooklyn, of counsel), for appellant.
Eugene Gold, Dist. Atty., Brooklyn (Franklin L. Carroll, III, Brooklyn, of counsel), for respondent.
Before LATHAM, Acting P.J., and COHALAN, CHRIST, BRENNAN and SHAPIRO, JJ.
MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.
Appeal by defendant (1) from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County, rendered August 27, 1973, convicting him of assault in the third degree, upon his plea of guilty, and imposing sentence and (2) by permission, from an order of the same court, dated December 6, 1973, which denied his motion for resentence.
Judgment and order affirmed.
In 1972 defendant, then a few weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday, was indicted--as was a codefendant not involved in this appeal-- by a Kings County Grand Jury and charged in a three-count indictment with the crimes (felonies) of attempted robbery in the second degree (2 counts) and assault in the second degree. He entered a plea of 'not guilty'.
Several months later, in Supreme Court, defendant was permitted to withdraw his not guilty plea and to plead guilty to the crime of assault in the third degree, a class A misdemeanor, in full satisfaction of the indictment.
The court declared him to be an eligible youth as defined in CPL 720.10 (subd. 2), since he had not previously been convicted of a felony and the indictment did not accuse him of a class A felony.
However, the probation report was so derogatory in its content that the trial court refused to adjudicate defendant a youthful offender (Y.O.) and instead imposed a sentence of imprisonment of one year and remanded him to the New York City Department of Correction.
The instant appeal is grounded upon the proposition that, since defendant was in the age range of 'at least sixteen years old and less than nineteen years old' (CPL 720.10, subd. 1) and entered a misdemeanor plea, he was entitled, as a matter of law, to be sentenced in accordance with the Y.O. provision (CPL 720.20). As pertinent from his point of view, that section reads:
'1. Upon conviction of an eligible youth, the court must order a pre-sentence investigation of the defendant. After receipt of a written report of the investigation and at the time of pronouncing sentence the court must determine whether or not the eligible youth is a youthful offender. Such determination shall be in accordance with the following criteria:
'(a) If in the opinion of the court the interest of justice would be served by relieving the eligible youth from the onus of a criminal record and by not imposing an indeterminate term of imprisonment of more than four years, the court may, in its discretion, find the eligible youth is a youthful offender; and
'(b) Where the conviction is had in a local criminal court and the eligible youth had not prior to commencement of trial * * * been convicted of a crime or found a youthful offender, the court must find he is a youthful offender.'
Perhaps conveniently, defendant overlooks subdivision 4 of the same section:
As a practical matter, if defendant had been processed under CPL 720.20 (subd. 1, par. (b)) in a nonjury trial, the maximum period of incarceration permitted would have been six months (see Baldwin v New York, 399 U.S. 66, 90 S.Ct. 1886, 26 L.Ed.2d 437). Baldwin established the rule that a jury trial is mandated if the sentence which may be imposed can exceed six months' incarceration.
The Y.O. Act first entered our statutes as sections 252--a to 252--h of the Code of Criminal Procedure ). It was enacted with the praiseworthy aim that a youth between the ages of 16 and 19 should not be stigmatized for life with a criminal record because of a hasty, ill-advised or thoughtless act, which, although deplorable in itself, was not the act of a hardened criminal. The Act has been amended from time to time. Now, except as otherwise regulated by statute (as in CPL 720.20, subd. 1, par. (b)), the court is vested with discretion in the application of the act, for Y.O. treatment is a privilege accorded to a youth, not a constitutional right (People v. Langford, 206 Misc. 628, 134 N.Y.S.2d 712). Accordingly, the Legislature is empowered to surround the law with such limitations as it, in its wisdom, deems fit.
Here, defendant was accused by a Grand Jury of committing the felonies above mentioned. Had a trial proceeded he may or may not have been convicted of one or more felonies. The fact that he was permitted to plead to a misdemeanor was, in effect, an act of grace on the part of the People and the trial court.
As envisioned, Y.O. treatment is a natural and gradual intermediate step between the application of statutes regarding juvenile delinquency (up to 16 years-of-age) and adulthood. The theory is that the youth is to be allowed at least one bite before being subjected to the harsher processes of the law. In this instance, defendant's past, even at so tender an age, had been unsavory, as reflected in his probation report.
Defendant complains of a denial to him of the equal protection of the law (N.Y.Const., art. I, § 11; U.S.Const., 14th Amdt., § 1), noting that it has been held that:
(Walters v. City of St. Louis, 347 U.S. 231, 237, 74 S.Ct. 505, 509, 98 L.Ed. 660).
Defendant views his case through the wrong end of the telescope. Viewed in its proper light, he has been denied Y.O. treatment in the exercise of the trial court's discretion, and was then considered as an adult for the purpose of sentence. Let us suppose that his codefendant was an adult who pled guilty to the same crime, i.e., addault in the third degree. The adult would have been amenable to the one-year sentence. If defendant's reasoning is to be followed and if he, defendant, were to receive the benefit of the six-month sentence accorded to a Y.O., then why should not the adult receive equal treatment? The question answers itself. The youth, if accorded Y.O. treatment would benefit by grace of the Legislature, which lenity is not accorded the adult. Thus, it is the Y.O. who gains the advantage in derogation of the treatment accorded the adult. If anyone should be heard to complain, it is the latter.
As with many laws humanitarian in nature, the Y.O. Act has spawned many abuses and much misuse. Hoodlums and thugs, impossible to rehabilitate, have been the recipients of its benefits and have fallen afoul of the law for more serious crimes in later years after they were no longer afforded the benefits of the Act. Conversely, many youths arrested for such acts as unauthorized use of motor vehicles and criminal trespass, among others, can thank the Act for bringing the error of their ways home to them on the occasion of their first misstep.
The attention of the Legislature, however, should be called to one anomaly with respect to the Act. Under existing law, 18 is the age of majority, yet the Y.O. Act extends its benefits to a youth until the age of 19. Surely if one is old enough to enjoy all the privileges and immunities of citizenship, as well as bearing the duties thereof, such a person is old enough to be amenable to the adult criminal justice system.
THE ISSUE
This appeal attacks the provisions of paragraph (a) of subdivision 1 of CPL 720.20 as an unconstitutional denial of the Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and of article I, Section 11 of the Constitution of the State of New York. That provision of the CPL authorizes a Justice of the Supreme Court, In his discretion, to grant or deny youthful offender status to a person otherwise eligible for such treatment, whereas the provisions of paragraph (b) of subdivision 1 of CPL 720.20 divest the court of any such discretion and Mandate the grant of youthful offender treatment to an eligible defendant who is convicted in a local criminal court if he had not, prior thereto, been convicted of a crime of found to be a youthful offender.
The indictment charged appellant with commission of the felonies of robbery in the second degree (two counts) and assault in the second degree. He pled guilty to the crime of assault in the third degree, a class A misdemeanor. The Justice of the Supreme Court, in accepting the plea, advised appellant that he could impose a one-year jail sentence, adding that since appellant was under the age of 19 years, he was eligible for youthful offender treatment and that whether he received such treatment from the court depended on whether the probation report was favorable to him and upon whether his attorneys requested such treatment. After receipt of the probation report, the trial court refused to adjudge appellant a youthful offender and instead imposed the sentence of imprisonment for one year here under appeal.
The relevant provisions of CPL 720.20, which deals with youthful offender determinations, read:
'1. Upon conviction of an eligible youth, the court must order a pre-sentence investigation of the defendant. After receipt of a written report of the...
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People v. Santiago
...crime is the product of plea negotiation, a defendant, as a matter of policy, should be held to his bargain (People v. Drayton, 47 A.D.2d 952, 957, 367 N.Y.S.2d 506, 515, n. 1). In Drummond's case the record shows clearly that the plea was made by her in contemplation of a sentence to an in......
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... ... (People v. Drayton, 47 A.D.2d 952, 367 N.Y.S.2d 506, affd. 39 N.Y.2d 580, 385 N.Y.S.2d 1, 350 N.E.2d 377, revd. sub nom Drayton v. People of the State of New York, et al., 423 F.Supp. 786, revd. 556 F.2d 644, 2nd Cir., cert. den. 434 U.S. 958, 98 S.Ct. 488, 54 L.Ed.2d 317.) That case explicitly did not treat the ... ...
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Drayton v. People of State of N. Y.
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