The People v. Locksley Williams

Issue before the Court: C.P.L. § 30.30(5-a) requires the prosecution, in a misdemeanor case, to “certif[y]” that all charges in the accusatory instrument are properly charged^[1] in order for their statement of readiness to be “valid.” Where the accusatory instrument contains some valid and some invalid charges, and the § 30.30 clock has run, is dismissal of the entire accusatory instrument required?

Factual Background:

The prosecution charged Mr. Williams by misdemeanor information with various offenses stemming from his unlicensed operation of a vehicle, and one count of failure to obey a traffic signal (VTL § 111(b)(1)). The unlicensed driving counts were properly charged, but no facts supported the traffic-signal violation, and so it was facially invalid.

Despite the facially invalid count, the prosecution filed a statement of readiness asserting that all of the counts were properly charged. After the § 30.30 clock ran, the defense moved to dismiss the information, arguing that the traffic-signal charge was facially invalid and that the prosecutor’s inaccurate certification invalidated their statement of readiness as to the rest of the counts. The Criminal Court dismissed invalid count but not the others, and the Appellate Term, Second Department affirmed.

Five justices agreed with the Appellate Term in a decision authored by Judge Cannataro. Judges Rivera and Wilson dissented. Per the majority, the prosecution’s statement of readiness is valid so long as it contains the required certification, even if that statement is false because some of the counts are improperly charged.

CAL Observes:

The rule the court lays down is clear: § 30.30 does not require the dismissal of properly pleaded counts, even where the information contains some improperly pleaded counts after the readiness period has run.

It seems to this author that this case ultimately turns on the majority’s policy concern.^[2] The majority is worried about a particular problem that would result if the dissent were right. C.P.L. § 100.15 and 100.40 place two requirements on the prosecution: that they “convert” any nonhearsy allegations in the complaint by furnishing depositions from actual witnesses to the facts; and that those factual allegations sufficiently make out the elements of the offense. The first of these is purely within the prosecution’s control. But, the majority worries, the second is not. The prosecution may think that they have a valid information, because they’ve gotten depositions attesting to all the facts they think they need—but those factual allegations may not be enough because “facial sufficiency is a legal question” that the prosecutor may reasonably get wrong. When that happens, the majority thinks it is unfair to dismiss both the valid and invalid charges.

The dissent takes a different view of the statute’s purpose. According to the dissent, the point is to ensure that any issues relating to the accusatory instrument are squared away within the 30.30 period. It makes sense to say that the prosecution can’t be ready for trial until that point because the defense cannot adequately prepare for trial if they don’t know which counts will actually be tried. The big problem for the dissent is that the defense is permitted to move to dismiss the information at any time and so a shrewd defense attorney, recognizing that one count is improperly pled, could wait until the § 30.30 period had run, hoping to get dismissal of the entire information.^[3]

Fair enough, but what, then, is the purpose of requiring the prosecution to attest that all of the charges are properly pled? The majority says it is to avoid a “historical” practice of partial conversion of complaints. Before the statute, the prosecution could “convert” some charges and declare ready only on those. It could then leave the unconverted charges hanging without risking dismissal of the others. (5-a) prevents this by requiring the prosecution to state they are ready on all of the charges.

relating to certificates of compliance explicitly require that the certificate be “proper” in order for the prosecution to be deemed “ready.” See C.P.L. §§ 245.20, 245.50(3). According to the majority, the fact that § 30.30(5-a) does not have any similar “propriety” language shows that the certification need not be accurate. But that difference would only matter if the C.P.L. somewhere required the prosecution to “certify” that they had complied with their discovery obligations—only then would the additional requirement that the certificate be “proper” suggest that such language was necessary to make “certify” mean “certify accurately.” But the C.P.L. does not require the prosecution to “certify” that they have complied with their discovery obligations, like it requires them to “certify[y] that all counts charged” are valid. Instead, C.P.L. § 245.50(1) requires the prosecution to “file . . . a certificate of compliance” (emphasis added). So the “proper” requirement cannot tell us what the word “certify” means.

But there’s little practical point to requiring the prosecution to do that without also providing a dismissal remedy. Imagine, under the new regime, the prosecutor has supporting depositions for some allegations but not others. True, they can’t declare ready on any of the counts. But they can effectively do the same thing. As long as they’re paying attention to the § 30.30 clock, they can hold back their statement of readiness until the clock is about to run to wait and see whether they will get the missing depositions. It’s hard to see how this is different in any real way from what would happen under the old rule.^[4] By contrast, allowing for dismissal of the entire information would truly prevent “hybrid” informations by requiring the prosecution.

[1] Under C.P.L. § 30.30(5-a), the accusatory instrument must comply with C.P.L. §§ 100.15 and 100.40, which require that a misdemeanor information be supported by nonhearsay allegations that support every element of the crimes charged.

[2] That’s not quite what the majority or dissent say. Both seem to agree that the adjudication of the case turns on plain-text statutory interpretation. The statute requires the prosecution to “certif[y]” that the accusatory instrument is valid. In this writer’s view, the text alone can’t tell us whether that means “accurately certify” or not. And there are serious problems with the majority’s attempt to read the statute in the context of the rest of the scheme. The majority points out that the C.P.L.’s provisions

[3] § 30.30(5)(a) may supply the answer. It requires the court to inquire whether the prosecution is “actual[ly] read[y].” Because the (5-a) certification is necessary for there to be a “valid” “statement of readiness,” it seems logical that the court could resolve any issues about the adequacy of the information at that point—preventing the defense from waiting to bring those issues to the court’s attention after the clock is run. Notably, though, the current CJI Model Colloquy on readiness does not include any inquiry relating to (5-a).

[4] Notably, the prosecution suggested that, where the government files a certification knowing that some charges were not properly pled, i.e. where they act in bad faith, the certification would not be valid.

The majority does not appear to have adopted even this limitation.