Opinion
11655 SCI 3639/99
06-18-2020
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Joel BUTLER, Defendant–Appellant.
Christina Swarns, Office of The Appellate Defender, New York (Dana B. Wolfe of counsel), for appellant. Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (Robert Myers of counsel), for respondent.
Christina Swarns, Office of The Appellate Defender, New York (Dana B. Wolfe of counsel), for appellant.
Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (Robert Myers of counsel), for respondent.
Acosta, P.J., Richter, Mazzarelli, Webber, Gonza´lez, JJ.
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Ruth L. Sussman, J. at plea; George R. Villegas, J. at dismissal motion and sentencing), rendered June 8, 2015, as amended June 24, 2015, convicting defendant of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree (two counts) and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender, to an aggregate term of seven years, unanimously affirmed.
The court properly denied defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment, based on allegedly unreasonable delay in sentencing (see CPL 380.30 ; People v. Drake, 61 N.Y.2d 359, 474 N.Y.S.2d 276, 462 N.E.2d 376 [1984] ). The totality of the information before the motion court supported its factual finding that the state where defendant had been incarcerated had no intention of permitting him to be extradited until he had completed his sentence following his conviction for murder in the second degree. Accordingly, further efforts by the People to produce defendant for sentencing would have been futile (see e.g. People v. Ruiz, 44 A.D.3d 428, 843 N.Y.S.2d 78 [1st Dept. 2007], lv denied 10 N.Y.3d 770, 854 N.Y.S.2d 332, 883 N.E.2d 1267 [2008] ). The additional delay after defendant was ultimately returned to New York was not so unreasonable as to require dismissal.
We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence.