ONCE A COURT SENTENCES A DEFENDANT TO SHOCK INCARCERATION, THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND COMMUNITY SUPERVISION (DOCCS) DOES NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO DETERMINE THE DEFENDANT IS NOT ELIGIBLE; APPEAL HEARD AS AN EXCEPTION TO THE MOOTNESS DOCTRINE (THIRD DEPT).

The Third Department, in full-fledged opinion by Justice Reynolds Fitzgerald, determined the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) did not have the authority to find the peititioner was not eligible for the shock incarceration based upon his drug-related prison disciplinary history. Although the appeal was moot because petitioner had completed the program, the appeal was heard as an exception to the mootness doctrine because the scenario is likely to recur:

Once an inmate has been judicially ordered into the program, DOCCS’ participation under Penal Law § 60.04 (7) is expressly limited to its administration of the program, i.e., the completion, discipline and removal of an inmate from the program. If the Legislature intended DOCCS to have administrative discretion as to the eligibility criteria, it could have said so. It is a canon of statutory interpretation that a court cannot by implication supply in a statute a provision that it is reasonable to suppose the Legislature intended to omit (see McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Statutes § 74). The doctrine of expressio unius est exclusio alterius applies. The specification that DOCCS shall oversee completion, discipline and removal from the program implies in the strongest sense that the omission of DOCCS’ administrative eligibility regulation was intentional and not inadvertent … . Matter of Matzell v Annucci, 2020 NY Slip Op 01425. Third Dept 2-27-20