People v. Papa
| Decision Date | 25 July 1983 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. Victor PAPA, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Harold Borg, Kew Gardens (Arnold E. Wallach, Kew Gardens, of counsel), for appellant.
John J. Santucci, Dist. Atty., Kew Gardens (Merri Turk Lasky and Richard G. Denzer, New York City, of counsel), for respondent.
Before LAZER, J.P., and GULOTTA, BROWN and BOYERS, JJ.
Appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County, rendered April 2, 1982, convicting him of three counts each of criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree, falsifying business records in the first degree, illegal possession of vehicle identification number plates and violating section 426 of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.
Judgment reversed, on the law, counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 of the indictment dismissed, and matter remitted to the Supreme Court, Queens County, for a hearing to determine whether defendant's statutory speedy trial rights concerning counts 5, 6, 7 and 8 were violated.
The most significant contention advanced by defendant on this appeal concerns the purported violation of his statutory right to a speedy trial. Defendant was originally charged under a 24-count indictment arising out of his possession of six allegedly stolen vehicles. Immediately prior to trial, the People moved to dismiss counts 17, 18, 19 and 20 of the indictment. Counts 21, 22, 23 and 24 were dismissed by the court during the trial. Counts 13 and 14 were also dismissed by the court for the reason that the People failed to prove that the vehicle involved, a 1979 Ford pickup truck, was on defendant's used car lot without the owner's permission. The jury found defendant guilty of three counts of criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree (counts 1, 5 and 9), three counts of falsifying business records in the first degree (counts 2, 6 and 10), three counts of illegal possession of vehicle identification number plates (counts 3, 7 and 11), and three counts of violating section 426 of the Vehicle and Traffic Law (counts 4, 8 and 12). The jury acquitted defendant of counts 15 and 16, which charged him, respectively, with the illegal possession of a vehicle identification number plate and violating the same Vehicle and Traffic Law provision involved in counts 4, 8 and 12.
Defendant had moved prior to trial to dismiss all of the counts in the indictment on statutory speedy trial grounds. The People submitted an affirmation in opposition. Although no formal order was entered denying defendant's motion, defendant asserts, and the People concede, that the court denied the motion without a hearing after the completion of the testimony of all witnesses at trial as follows: "I have decided that even though it was a long time in waiting to bring this case to trial, that in the interest of justice we had arrived at it and it had been assigned to me from the Complex, and therefore even though I do think it was untimely in waiting, here we are and we're going to resolve the matter here". Defense counsel noted his exception to the court's ruling.
On its face, the court's "reasoning" is flawed in at least two respects. First, CPL 30.30 contains no provision authorizing a court to deny a defendant's speedy trial application "in the interest of justice". Second, it appears that the court never even considered the merits of defendant's motion. Rather the clear implication is that the court denied the motion simply because both sides had, in effect, presented their cases to the jury. If this indeed was the reason for denying defendant's motion, the trial court completely ignored the purposes and principles of the statutory speedy trial right accorded to every defendant.
In any event, an examination of the affirmation submitted on the speedy trial motion indicates that 12 counts of the indictment should have been dismissed outright. On May 14, 1980, defendant was arraigned in Criminal Court on charges which led to counts 10, 11, 14, 15, 22 and 23 of the indictment. The People's opposition papers treated the counts in blocks of four, since every set of four counts flowed from...
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