DELAY DUE TO MOTION PRACTICE BY CO-DEFENDANTS NOT CHARGEABLE TO THE PEOPLE, DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO DISMISS FOR A SPEEDY TRIAL VIOLATION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GRANTED 3RD DEPT.
The Third Department determined the defendant’s motion to dismiss based upon a speedy trial violation should not have been granted. The relevant period of postreadiness delay was due to motion practice by co-defendants and was therefore not chargeable to the People for any of the defendants:
The five codefendants who were named with defendant in the joint indictment were arrested and arraigned at various times. During the 27-day period that Supreme Court charged to the People as postreadiness delay, several of these codefendants were engaged in motion practice, including motions that were due but had not yet been filed, were awaiting the People’s response, or were awaiting the court’s decision. In a prosecution involving a single defendant, delay resulting from motion practice is not chargeable to the People (see CPL 30.30 [4] [a]…). Likewise, periods of delay that result from motion practice by any codefendant in a joint prosecution are excludable as to all of them … . Defendant did not meet his burden to show that the delay resulting from his codefendants’ motion practice was unreasonably lengthy or that the exclusion provided by CPL 30.30 (4) (d) should not be applied here for any other reason … .
As the language of CPL 30.30 (4) (d) implies, a defendant’s remedy for delays caused by codefendants in a joint prosecution is to move for severance. Here, although defendant was represented by counsel throughout the pertinent period, he neither moved for severance at any time nor showed that good cause for severance existed … . Thus, the 27-day period charged by Supreme Court to the People as postreadiness delay should not have been added to the 163-day period of prereadiness delay, with the result that the People declared readiness within six months and complied with their statutory obligation. People v Chrysler, 2017 NY Slip Op 05477, 3rd Dept 7-6-17
CRIMINAL LAW (DELAY DUE TO MOTION PRACTICE BY CO-DEFENDANTS NOT CHARGEABLE TO THE PEOPLE, DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO DISMISS FOR A SPEEDY TRIAL VIOLATION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GRANTED 3RD DEPT)/SPEEDY TRIAL (DELAY DUE TO MOTION PRACTICE BY CO-DEFENDANTS NOT CHARGEABLE TO THE PEOPLE, DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO DISMISS FOR A SPEEDY TRIAL VIOLATION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GRANTED 3RD DEPT)