Opinion
December 21, 1995
Appeal from the Family Court, New York County (Leah Marks, J.).
Respondents-appellants herein assert that the laboratory reports that were annexed to their petitions did not contain sufficient non-hearsay allegations that the substance recovered by the police was cocaine, thereby rendering jurisdictionally defective on their faces the accusatory instruments against them. In both instances, the presentment agency concedes that this is true. Nonetheless, the agency maintains that the holding in Matter of Wesley M. ( 83 N.Y.2d 898) and Matter of Rodney J. ( 83 N.Y.2d 503) should not be retroactively applied, arguing that these decisions by the Court of Appeals represent a significant departure from prior legal authority so as to constitute a "new rule" ( see, People v Mitchell, 80 N.Y.2d 519).
The Court of Appeals did not create a new rule of law in Matter of Wesley M. ( supra) and Matter of Rodney J. (supra; see, People v Favor, 82 N.Y.2d 254, 262-263). As the Court observed in People v Favor, "a judicial holding overruling established precedent should, in most instances, be considered a `new' rule" (supra, at 263). However: "`[a] judicial decision construing the words of a statute [for the first time] does not constitute the creation of a new legal principle' ( Gurnee v Aetna Life Cas. Co., [ 55 N.Y.2d 184,] at 192). Further, retroactivity should not be in question when a court's ruling merely applies previously established principles in a new factual setting or settles a question in a manner that was clearly foreshadowed ( see, Gurnee v Aetna Life Cas. Co., 55 N.Y.2d 184, 192, supra; see also, Yates v Aiken, 484 U.S. 211; cf., Gager v White, [ 53 N.Y.2d 475]; see also, Chevron Oil Co. v Huson, [ 404 U.S. 97,] at 106)." ( Supra, at 263.)
The decisions by the Court of Appeals in Matter of Wesley M. (supra), and Matter of Rodney J. (supra), were "clearly foreshadowed" in Matter of David T. ( 75 N.Y.2d 927), wherein the decision in People v Alejandro ( 70 N.Y.2d 133 [a criminal court information is jurisdictionally defective when it does not contain non-hearsay allegations establishing each element of the crime charged that is sufficient to establish a prima facie case]) was made applicable to juvenile delinquency proceedings, and in Matter of Detrece H. ( 78 N.Y.2d 107), in which the Court determined that a juvenile delinquency petition is both legally insufficient and jurisdictionally defective in the absence of non-hearsay allegations of every element of each crime charged and respondent's commission thereof. Then, first in Matter of Jahron S. ( 79 N.Y.2d 632 [where it is an element of the crime that a person possesses a controlled substance, it is necessary for a juvenile delinquency petition to have nonhearsay allegations that the substance in question is, in fact, what it purports to be]), and later in Matter of Wesley M. (supra) and Matter of Rodney J. (supra), the Court of Appeals simply elucidated its earlier interpretation of the relevant law. Accordingly, Matter of Wesley M. (supra), and Matter of Rodney J. (supra) cannot be considered to have overruled established precedent or to have created a "`sharp break in the continuity of law'" ( People v Favor, supra, at 263) so as to preclude their retroactive application.
Concur — Rosenberger, J.P., Asch, Williams and Mazzarelli, JJ.