Opinion
01-28-2016
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Andre WALKER, Appellant.
Frank A. Sarat, Homer, for appellant. Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General, New York City (Hannah Stith Long of counsel), for respondent.
Frank A. Sarat, Homer, for appellant.
Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General, New York City (Hannah Stith Long of counsel), for respondent.
Before: McCARTHY, J.P., EGAN JR., LYNCH and CLARK, JJ.
LYNCH, J.Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Cortland County (Ames, J.), rendered October 1, 2013, convicting defendant upon his plea of guilty of the crimes of conspiracy in the fourth degree and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree.
Following an investigation by the Attorney General's Statewide Organized Crime Task Force, defendant and George Macon were charged in a superceding indictment with conspiracy in the fourth degree and other drug-related felonies stemming from the distribution of cocaine in 2012. Following extensive negotiations, defendant accepted a plea agreement pursuant to which he waived his right to appeal and pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the fourth degree and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree under counts 1 and 3 of the indictment, respectively, in satisfaction of all charges. He was sentenced, consistent with the plea agreement, to time served on each of the convictions, approximately one year in jail, to be served concurrently. Defendant appeals.
We affirm. Defendant challenges the voluntariness of his guilty plea, a claim that survives his uncontested waiver of the right to appeal but which is not preserved for this Court's review given his failure to make an appropriate postallocution motion (see CPL 220.60[3] ; People v. Hudson, 130 A.D.3d 1320, 1320, 14 N.Y.S.3d 231 [2015] ; People v. Guyette, 121 A.D.3d 1430, 1431, 995 N.Y.S.2d 395 [2014] ). Moreover, the narrow exception to the preservation rule is inapplicable here, as defendant did not make any statements during his ultimate plea allocution that were inconsistent with his guilt or otherwise called into question the voluntariness of his plea (see People v. Lopez, 71 N.Y.2d 662, 666, 529 N.Y.S.2d 465, 525 N.E.2d 5 [1988] ; People v. Hare, 110 A.D.3d 1117, 1117, 972 N.Y.S.2d 361 [2013] ). Although County Court's initial attempts to complete a plea allocution were halted due to defendant's reluctance to implicate Macon or to admit certain overt acts alleged in furtherance of the conspiracy, after two adjournments, defense counsel assured the court that defendant "understands his rights." Defendant thereafter allocuted, without qualification, to the conspiracy charge, including sufficient overt acts, and also admitted to the possession charge and, during both allocutions, made no statements suggestive of innocence or involuntariness. Further, prior to eliciting and accepting his guilty plea, the court adequately informed defendant of the trial-related rights that he was forfeiting as a consequence of the guilty plea, including "the privilege against self-incrimination and the rights to a jury trial and to be confronted by witnesses" (People v. Tyrell, 22 N.Y.3d 359, 361, 981 N.Y.S.2d 336, 4 N.E.3d 346 [2013], citing Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 243, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 [1969] ). As such, there is an "affirmative showing on the record that the defendant waived his constitutional rights" (People v. Tyrell, 22 N.Y.3d at 365, 981 N.Y.S.2d 336 [internal quotation marks and citation omitted] ).
With regard to defendant's specific claim that his plea was involuntary in that his factual admissions (although not his actual guilty plea) preceded County Court's advisement of the rights he would be forfeiting in connection with his guilty plea, we reiterate that it is the better practice to advise a pleading defendant of such rights "prior to obtaining an admission to the charges and a plea of guilty" (People v. Mandiville, 84 A.D.3d 1644, 1645 n., 923 N.Y.S.2d 911 [2011] ). We note that the Court of Appeals has held that, with regard to a trial court's failure to properly inform a defendant of the trial-related rights forfeited by a guilty plea, preservation is required "depending upon the particular circumstances of a case" (People v. Conceicao, 26 N.Y.3d 375, 382, 2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 08615, *3 [2015] ). Here, defendant failed to preserve this issue by making a postallocution motion to withdraw his plea, despite the opportunity to do so in the months following his guilty plea and before sentencing (see id. ). Given that defendant was advised of his trial- related rights during two arraignments and only entered a guilty plea after he was fully advised of the rights that he was forgoing by his plea, we decline to take corrective action in the interest of justice (see CPL 470.15[6] ). Defendant's remaining claims have been reviewed and determined to lack merit.
ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.
McCARTHY, J.P., EGAN JR. and CLARK, JJ., concur.