People v. Lingle
| Decision Date | 28 April 2011 |
| Citation | 2011 N.Y. Slip Op. 03308,949 N.E.2d 952,16 N.Y.3d 621,926 N.Y.S.2d 4 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent,v.John LINGLE, Appellant.The People of the State of New York, Respondent,v.John Parisi, Appellant.The People of the State of New York, Respondent,v.Dominique Murrell, Appellant.The People of the State of New York, Respondent,v.John Prendergast, Appellant.The People of the State of New York, Respondent,v.Manuel Rodriguez, Appellant.The People of the State of New York, Respondent,v.Darryl Sharlow, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE Center for Appellate Litigation, New York City (Jonathan M. Kirshbaum and Robert S. Dean of counsel), for appellant in the first above-entitled action.Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York City (Vincent Rivellese and Patrick J. Hynes of counsel), for respondent in the first above-entitled action.Legal Aid Society of Suffolk County, Inc., Appeals Bureau, Riverhead (Kirk R. Brandt, Robert C. Mitchell, Robert L. Cicale and Alfred J. Cicale of counsel), for appellant in the second above-entitled action.Thomas J. Spota, District Attorney, Riverhead (Michael J. Brennan of counsel), for respondent in the second above-entitled action.Office of the Appellate Defender, New York City (Joseph M. Nursey and Richard M. Greenberg of counsel), for appellant in the third above-entitled action.Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York City (Timothy C. Stone and Vincent Rivellese of counsel), for respondent in the third above-entitled action.Appellate Advocates, New York City (Warren S. Landau and Lynn W.L. Fahey of counsel), for appellant in the fourth above-entitled action.Richard A. Brown, District Attorney, Kew Gardens (Anastasia Spanakos and John M. Castellano of counsel), for respondent in the fourth above-entitled action.Center for Appellate Litigation, New York City (Claudia S. Trupp and Robert S. Dean of counsel), for appellant in the fifth above-entitled action. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York City (Richard Nahas and Patrick J. Hynes of counsel), for respondent in the fifth above-entitled action.Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Brooklyn (Solomon Neubort of counsel), for appellant in the sixth above-entitled action.Legal Aid Society, Criminal Appeals Bureau, New York City (Steven J. Miraglia of counsel), for respondent in the sixth above-entitled action.
In People v. Sparber, 10 N.Y.3d 457, 859 N.Y.S.2d 582, 889 N.E.2d 459 (2008), we held that defendants subject to postrelease supervision (PRS) have a statutory right under CPL 380.20 and 380.40 for a judge to pronounce the PRS sentence in their presence in open court, and that the remedy when a judge neglects to do this is resentencing to correct the error. Although the facts in these six cases vary, they share two essential features: the judges who sentenced defendants did not pronounce PRS (i.e., they committed a Sparber error), and defendants were resentenced to PRS before completion of their originally-imposed sentences of imprisonment. Specifically, defendants John Lingle, John Parisi, Dominique Murrell, John Prendergast and Manuel Rodriguez were still incarcerated when resentenced; defendant Darryl Sharlow was conditionally released from prison after having served six sevenths of his originally-imposed sentence.
Defendants Lingle, Parisi, Murrell, Prendergast, Rodriguez and Sharlow seek upon resentencing to be relieved of their statutory obligation to serve PRS on grounds of double jeopardy and/or due process. Alternatively, defendants Lingle, Prendergast and Rodriguez maintain that resentencing courts have discretion to reconsider the propriety of their sentences as a whole (i.e., both the incarceratory and the PRS components). Defendants Lingle and Rodriguez contend, in addition, that the Appellate Division possesses plenary power to modify their sentences after resentencing in the interest of justice. We reject all these arguments, and thus affirm in Lingle, Parisi, Murrell, Prendergast and Rodriguez, and reverse in People v. Sharlow.
Defendants contend that because they served “significant” or “substantial” portions of their originally-imposed sentences before resentencing, they acquired a legitimate expectation of finality, and, as a result, their cases are not comparable to those where the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar a greater sentence ( see e.g. Bozza v. United States, 330 U.S. 160, 67 S.Ct. 645, 91 L.Ed. 818 [1947] []; Williams v. Travis, 143 F.3d 98 [2d Cir.1998] [one week]; People v. Williams, 87 N.Y.2d 1014, 643 N.Y.S.2d 469, 666 N.E.2d 174 [1996] [one week] ). In order to avoid a double jeopardy violation, they continue, resentencing courts may only impose PRS by reducing the incarceratory portion of their sentences such that the incarceratory and PRS components of the resentences, when added together, do not exceed the length of their originally-imposed sentences of imprisonment.
Our decision in People v. Williams, 14 N.Y.3d 198, 899 N.Y.S.2d 76, 925 N.E.2d 878 (2010), cert. denied 562 U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 125, 178 L.Ed.2d 242 (2010) defeats defendants' double jeopardy argument. We pointed out in Williams that defendants are “presumed to be aware that a determinate prison sentence without a
[949 N.E.2d 956 , 926 N.Y.S.2d 8]
term of PRS is illegal” and subject to correction, and therefore “cannot claim a legitimate expectation that the originally-imposed, improper sentence is final for all purposes” ( id. at 217, 899 N.Y.S.2d 76, 925 N.E.2d 878). Nonetheless, “there must be a temporal limitation on a court's ability to resentence a defendant ... since criminal courts do not have perpetual jurisdiction over all persons who were once sentenced for criminal acts” ( id.). Citing federal precedent that we found to be persuasive, we held in Williams that an expectation of finality arises for purposes of double jeopardy when a defendant completes the lawful portion of an illegal sentence and exhausts any appeal taken ( id.[“(T)here is a legitimate expectation of finality once the initial sentence has been served and the direct appeal has been completed (or the time to appeal has expired)”]; see also id. at 227, 899 N.Y.S.2d 76, 925 N.E.2d 878 [Pigott, J., dissenting] [] ). The defendants in Williams and the cases decided along with it had all completed their sentences (including any discharge on conditional release) before being resentenced. By contrast, the six defendants in these cases had not yet completed their originally-imposed sentences of imprisonment when they were resentenced to add PRS.1
To counter Williams, defendants highlight the Second Circuit's decision in Stewart v. Scully, 925 F.2d 58 (2d Cir.1991). Focusing on the “substantial portion” of the originally-imposed indeterminate sentence already served, the court in Stewart decided that the petitioner possessed a “legitimate expectation in the finality of his sentence, thus violating the protection against multiple punishments guaranteed by the double jeopardy clause” ( id. at 58). But Stewart pleaded guilty in exchange for a maximum sentencing exposure of 20 years. Upon subsequently learning that the minimum sentence had to be one third (as opposed to one half) the maximum, the sentencing court increased Stewart's maximum sentence to 24 years. By contrast, these defendants were not caught unaware when a sentencing agreement was changed: defendants Lingle, Parisi, Murrell, Prendergast and Rodriguez were sentenced after trials; defendant Sharlow was sentenced, “ as promised, to seven years” (dissenting op. at 636, 926 N.Y.S.2d at 12, 949 N.E.2d at 960 [emphasis added] ).
Importantly, defendants' suggested rule—that resentencing to PRS should be precluded when a “significant” or “substantial” portion of the originally—imposed sentence of imprisonment has been served—supplies no meaningful standard by which to measure a reasonable expectation of finality. Given the thousands of resentencings—past and future—brought about by Sparber errors, our rule in Williams, by contrast, promotes clarity, certainty and fairness.
Finally, defendants offer no principled basis for us to go beyond our recent decision in Williams and interpret the State Constitution's Double Jeopardy Clause more broadly than its federal counterpart,
[949 N.E.2d 957 , 926 N.Y.S.2d 9]
particularly in light of our other recent decision in Matter of Suarez v. Byrne, 10 N.Y.3d 523, 534, 860 N.Y.S.2d 439, 890 N.E.2d 201 (2008). True, the Legislature has enacted certain statutes affording broader double jeopardy protection than the Federal Constitution requires, but these laws have nothing to do with sentencing. Indeed, after we handed down Sparber the Legislature promptly adopted legislation to allow resentencing as many defendants as possible to sentences that include PRS ( see L. 2008, ch. 141).
Defendants also argue that substantive due process bars their resentencing to PRS. To support a due process claim, they rely principally on the decisions of the First and Fourth Circuits in Breest v. Helgemoe, 579 F.2d 95 (1st Cir.1978), United States v. Lundien, 769 F.2d 981 (4th Cir.1985) and DeWitt v. Ventetoulo, 6 F.3d 32 (1st Cir.1993). These decisions generally apply a multi-factor test to determine when a defendant's expectation that his sentence will remain unchanged has “crystallized” such that resentencing would offend substantive due process ( see Lundien, 769 F.2d at 987). But subsequent decisions by the very same courts have largely abandoned the multi-factor test in favor of a “shocks the conscience” standard ( see ...
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