COUNTY COURT SHOULD HAVE DETERMINED WHETHER DEFENDANT WAS A SECOND VIOLENT FELONY OFFENDER BEFORE SENTENCING HIM AS A SECOND FELONY OFFENDER, MATTER REMITTED (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department determined County Court was obligated to determine whether defendant was a second violent felony offender before sentencing defendant as a second felony offender:

Where it is apparent at the time of sentencing that a defendant may be a second violent felony offender, the People are required to file a second violent felony offender statement in accordance with CPL 400.15 and, if appropriate, the court is then required to sentence the defendant as a second violent felony offender … . Here, no such statement was filed, although the People were aware that, approximately 10 years earlier, defendant had been incarcerated in North Carolina for a period of approximately 38 months on a prior conviction of voluntary manslaughter … . Had the court concluded based on that predicate offense that defendant is a second violent felony offender for this class C violent felony, the court would have been constrained by statute to impose a sentence that includes a determinate term of incarceration of not less than seven years and not more than 15 years … , and thus the six-year term of incarceration that defendant actually received pursuant to his plea agreement would have been illegal. People v Smith, 2021 NY Slip Op 04883, Fourth Dept 8-26-21