People v. Thomas
2019 NY Slip Op 01167
New York State Court of Appeals
Decided: February 19, 2019
ISSUE:
Whether a resentence on a prior conviction, imposed after the defendant’s original sentence is vacated as illegal, resets the date of sentencing for the purpose of determining a defendant’s predicate felony status where a defendant’s minimum sentences were reduced from one-half to one-third of the statuary maximum.
HOLDING:
The Court held that the date on which sentencing was first imposed upon a prior conviction is the relevant date for the purpose of determining when sentence upon such prior conviction was imposed because the court’s main task is to determine and uphold the intention of the Legislature, and the most direct way to do that is to interpret the language itself. Section 70.06 clearly defines “sentence” while making no reference to a “resentence.”
FACTS OF THE CASE:
Defendant Michael Thomas was convicted, upon a guilty plea, of attempted robbery in the second degree in 1989. Later that same year, Thomas was convicted of attempted robbery in the first degree, again upon a guilty plea. On both convictions, he was mistakenly sentenced as a second felony offender to 2 ½ – 5 years and 3 ½ – 7 years in prison, respectively, based on two 1988 youthful offender adjudications. In 1993, Thomas was convicted, by a jury, of robbery in the third degree and sentenced as a second felony offender to 3 ½ – 7 years in prison based upon his two 1989 convictions.
Long after Thomas served all of his aforementioned sentences, he moved to set aside his sentences on each of the 1989 convictions, arguing that his status as a second felony offender in both cases was improperly premised on the use of his 1988 youthful offender adjudications, which cannot be used as convictions for enhanced sentencing purposes. Motions to vacate original judgment were granted and the courts resentenced Thomas accordingly. He subsequently moved to set aside the sentence on his 1993 conviction and requested that he be resentenced on that conviction as a first-time offender, arguing that his 1989 convictions were no longer predicate felonies within the meaning of Penal Law § 70.06 (1)(b)(ii).
COURT’S ANALYSIS:
The Court held that the date on which the sentence was first imposed and not the date of any subsequent resentencings on that same conviction, is the relevant date for the purpose of determining when a sentence upon such prior conviction was imposed. Penal Law § 70.06 requires a sentencing court to impose an enhanced sentence where the defendant is a “second felony offender,” a person who stands convicted of a felony other than a class A-I felony, after having previously been subjected to one or more predicate felony convictions. As relevant here, a prior conviction will not constitute a predicate felony unless it satisfies the sequentiality requirement, namely, that the sentence upon such prior conviction must have been imposed before commission of the present felony. Relatedly, the sentence also must have been imposed not more than 10 years before commission of the felony for which the defendant presently stands convicted. The court rejected this interpretation of the predicate felony statutes because it defies the express language and would defeat the purpose of those statutes.
As with any question of statuary interpretation, this Court’s main task is to ascertain and give effect to the intention of the Legislature. Since the statutory text plainly outlines the legislative intent, the starting point of interpretation must always be the language itself. The Court also considers the spirit and purpose of the act and the objects to be accomplished. Critically, a statute must be constructed as a whole and its various sections must be considered together and with reference to each other. In People v. Thompson, the Court of Appeals determined that the term “sentence” was not synonymous with the term “resentence”. For the purpose of the sequentiality requirement and 10-year look-back period, section 70.06 defines “sentence” while making no reference to a resentence. In Thompson, the Court explained that the use of the word “sentence” and not the word “resentence” is particularly significant because unlike a sentence of probation, a resentence is not defined as a sentence under the predicate felony statutes.
Contrary to the defendant’s argument, the CPL directs that the sentence imposed as part of the final judgment is the original sentence imposed on the conviction, not a resentence. (See CPL 1.20[15]). The Court found this case analogous to People v Boyer, in which the Court held that a Sparber resentencing does not “reset the date of sentence for a felony conviction such that it may no longer serve as a predicate felony conviction in relation to a subsequently committed crime.” See People v Boyer, 22NY3 15 (2013); People v Sparber, 10 NY2d 457 (2008).