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WHERE NO NOTICE OF APPEAL IS FILED, A CONVICTION AND SENTENCE BECOMES FINAL WHEN THE 30-DAY PERIOD FOR FILING A NOTICE OF APPEAL EXPIRES.

The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Fahey, over a dissenting opinion by Judge Rivera, determined a judgment of conviction and sentence becomes final when the 30-day period for filing a notice of appeal expires (where no notice is filed). Here the issue was whether the defendant could move to vacate his conviction by guilty plea because he was not informed of the deportation consequences of the plea. Because the motion to vacate would not be available if defendant’s conviction and sentence became final before Padilla v Kentucky (559 US 356) was decided (requiring that a defendant be informed of deportation consequence of a plea), the date of finality was determinative. If the finality date is 30 days after conviction and sentence, defendant’s conviction and sentence would have been final before Padilla was decided. If, as defendant argued, the conviction and sentence became final one year and 30 days after the conviction and sentence, when the time for moving to file a late notice of appeal expired, defendant’s conviction and sentence would not have been final before Padilla was decided. Because the Court of Appeals decided the conviction and sentence became final when no notice of appeal was filed within 30 days, defendant could not move to vacate his conviction:

Adopting defendant’s reasoning would result in uncertainty in the finality of judgments in many procedural situations. For example, a defendant who takes a direct appeal to the Appellate Division but does not seek leave to appeal to this Court in a timely fashion could argue that the judgment was not final until one year and 30 days after the Appellate Division affirmance, inasmuch as the defendant could have sought leave from this Court to file a belated application for discretionary review pursuant to CPL 460.30 (1). Or, a defendant who has filed a notice of appeal with the Appellate Division but has had the appeal dismissed due to failure to perfect could argue that the judgment is not yet final, inasmuch as the defendant could ask the Appellate Division to vacate the dismissal of the appeal.

Indeed, if we adopt defendant’s logic, other defendants who did not take a direct appeal conceivably could argue that their judgments were never final, inasmuch as they could seek to file a late notice of appeal even after the one-year grace period of CPL 460.30 has expired by moving for a writ of error coram nobis … . People v Varenga, 2015 NY Slip Op 09312, CtApp 12-17-15

CRIMINAL LAW (WHERE NO NOTICE OF APPEAL IS FILED, A JUDGMENT OF CONVICTION AND SENTENCE BECOMES FINAL WHEN THE 30-DAY PERIOD FOR FILING A NOTICE OF APPEAL EXPIRES)/JUDGMENT OF CONVICTION AND SENTENCE (BECOMES FINAL UPON EXPIRATION OF 30-DAY PERIOD FOR FILING A NOTICE OF APPEAL)

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