People v. Towler
| Decision Date | 22 July 1968 |
| Citation | 293 N.Y.S.2d 7,30 A.D.2d 876 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, etc., Respondent, v. James TOWLER, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Aaron E. Koota, Dist. Atty., Kings County, for respondent; William I. Siegel, Asst. Dist. Atty., of counsel.
Anthony F. Marra, New York City, for defendant-appellant; Gretchen White Oberman, New York City, of counsel.
Before BELDOCK, P.J., and BRENNAN, HOPKINS, BENJAMIN and MARTUSCELLO, JJ.
MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.
Judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County, rendered March 16, 1967, reversed, on the law and in the interests of justice, and case remanded to the trial court for proceedings not inconsistent herewith. The findings of fact below are affirmed.
On the record before us, we find the following: Defendant was offered youthful offender treatment on condition that he plead guilty. Maintaining his innocence, he refused to plead guilty. The court refused him youthful offender treatment because of his failure to so plead. Defendant stood trial before a jury as an adult, was convicted of robbery in the first degree, grand larceny in the first degree and assault in the second degree, and was sentenced to Elmira Reception Center for an indefinite term.
In our opinion, under Title VII--B of Part VI of the Code of Criminal Procedure the court must determine eligibility for youthful offender treatment solely on the basis of, and at the termination of, investigations, examination and questioning. Once eligibility is determined, the court can require the defendant to enter a plea of 'guilty' or 'not guilty' to the charge of being a youthful offender. The statute does not give the court the power to require a plea prior to the determination of eligibility or to condition such determination on the willingness of the defendant to plead guilty or not guilty. To construe the statute otherwise would render it unconstitutional. Depriving a defendant of a constitutional right or requiring him to waive a constitutional right in return for beneficial treatment would 'chill the assertion of constitutional rights by penalizing those who choose to exercise them' (United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570, 581, 88 S.Ct. 1209, 1216, 20 L.Ed.2d 138; cf. Nieves v. United States, D.C., 280 F.Supp. 994; In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527).
It has been argued that, though the interposition of the condition to youthful offender treatment was improper, there was no causal relationship between the improper condition and the judgment of conviction, and therefore no reversal of the...
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