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MISDEMEANOR COMPLAINTS AND INFORMATIONS CANNOT BE CORRECTED BY AMENDMENT; RATHER A SUPERSEDING INSTRUMENT SUPPORTED BY A SWORN STATEMENT WITH THE CORRECT FACTS MUST BE FILED; THE ISSUE WAS NOT WAIVED BY DEFENDANT’S GUILTY PLEA TO THE AMENDED INSTRUMENT (CT APP).

The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Wilson, reversing the Appellate Term and overruling precedent from 1954, over a two-judge dissent and an additional dissent, determined the misdemeanor complaint and the information to which the complaint was converted should not have been amended to correct wrong dates. The Criminal Procedure Law does not include a provision allowing amendment of misdemeanor complaints and informations. The proper procedure is to file a superseding accusatory instrument with a sworn statement supporting the correct facts. This appellate issue was not waived by defendant’s guilty plea:

The text, structure, and legislative history of the CPL, as well as a straightforward application of our canons of statutory construction, all demonstrate that the CPL does not permit the kinds of factual amendments once countenanced by [People v Easton (307 NY 336 [1954])]. The CPL does provide its own pathway for correcting factual errors in complaints and informations, through the filing of a superseding accusatory instrument (CPL 100.50), not through a prosecutor’s amendment of facts averred by someone else. We recognize that the October 25, 2015 date in the accusatory instrument here cannot possibly be correct and that the correct date can be inferred from information outside the four corners of the accusatory instrument. However, in evaluating the sufficiency of an accusatory instrument we do not look beyond its four corners (including supporting declarations appended thereto) … . It is the People’s responsibility to obtain a sworn statement with the correct factual allegations and proceed on a superseding instrument. People v Hardy, 2020 NY Slip Op 05803, CtApp 10-15-20

 

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