No Preservation Required to Review Validity of Guilty Plea and Immediate Sentencing In Absence of the Waiver of the Rights to a Jury Trial, to Confront Witnesses and to Avoid Self-Incrimination

In a full-fledged opinion by Judge Graffeo, the Court of Appeals reversed two convictions because the defendant entered a guilty plea and was immediately sentenced without any discussion of the “Boykin” rights waived by the plea (trial by jury, confront accusers, avoid self-incrimination). The court determined that, under the facts, it was not possible or practical to preserve the error by motion:

…[I]n Lopez we carved out a narrow exception to the preservation requirement for the “rare case” in which “the defendant’s recitation of the facts underlying the crime pleaded to clearly casts significant doubt upon the defendant’s guilt or otherwise calls into question the voluntariness of the plea” (Lopez, 71 NY2d at 666).  We also recognized a limited exception in Louree, concluding that a defendant can raise a …claim on direct appeal because of “the actual or practical unavailability of either a motion to withdraw the plea” or a “motion to vacate the judgment of conviction” (Louree, 8 NY3d at 546; …).

Here, whether we characterize these cases as falling within the Lopez/Louree exception or treat defendant’s claims as implicating rights of a constitutional dimension directed to the heart of the proceedings — i.e., a mode of proceedings error for which preservation is not required — defendant’s Boykin claims are reviewable on direct appeal. People v Tyrell, 230, 231, CtApp 12-12-13