OPINION OF THE COURT
The issue in this appeal is whether a defendant’s admissions must be corroborated in order to satisfy the prima facie case requirement for an information. We hold that corroboration is not necessary in this context.
Defendant Frank Súber registered as a level three sex offender in 1999. At that time, he received written notification that any change in his home address had to be communicated to the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) and that he also had to personally verify his residence address with local law enforcement officials every 90 days. In December 2005, defendant moved to an address in Brooklyn and he subsequently moved to another location within the borough in February 2006. On both occasions, defendant failed to update his information with DCJS and did not verify his addresses with the New York City Police Department. In July 2006, he notified DCJS that he was living in the Bronx.
Defendant eventually told a police officer about his two former Brooklyn residences. As a result of that disclosure, the People filed a misdemeanor information charging defendant with two counts of failing to personally verify his home address with local law enforcement every 90 days (see Correction Law § 168-f [3]) and two counts of failing to register as a sex offender within 10 days after changing his address (see Correction
In Criminal Court, defendant challenged the facial sufficiency of the information because it did not state facts or include affidavits that corroborated his statements to the police. After the court concluded that corroboration was not required, defendant pleaded guilty to one count of failing to register within 10 days of moving in return for a sentence of time served. The Appellate Term reversed and dismissed the accusatory instrument, holding that an information must set forth corroboration of an admission and that the lack of corroborative allegations regarding defendant’s residences rendered the accusatory instrument jurisdictionally insufficient (
Because defendant pleaded guilty, he forfeited any challenges to nonjurisdictional defects in the accusatory instrument—only jurisdictional and certain constitutional issues may be raised on appeal (see generally People v Konieczny,
As a general rule, a person cannot “be convicted of any offense solely upon evidence of a confession or admission made by him without additional proof that the offense charged has been committed” (CPL 60.50). Since this corroboration provision refers only to convictions, it has no bearing on the adequacy of charging instruments that provide the bases for prosecutions. Instead, the statutes that apply to accusatory instruments must be consulted to determine whether corroboration of an accused’s admission is needed to commence a criminal proceeding.
The Criminal Procedure Law contains various mandated components for the different categories of accusatory instruments. As pertinent to the issue in this appeal, a complaint is
In the hierarchy of accusatory instruments, the Criminal Procedure Law imposes additional requirements for indictments. In order to issue an indictment, a grand jury must be presented with “competent and admissible evidence . . . providing] reasonable cause” and the proof must be “legally sufficient to establish that such person committed such offense” (CPL 190.65 [1]). The phrase “legally sufficient evidence” is defined in the Criminal Procedure Law as “competent evidence which, if accepted as true, would establish every element of an offense charged and the defendant’s commission thereof; except that such evidence is not legally sufficient when corroboration required by law is absent” (CPL 70.10 [1]). Section 190.65 (1) similarly directs that the proof presented to the grand jury must be corroborated if corroboration is legally required to sustain a conviction (see CPL 190.65 [1] [a]). Since CPL 60.50 states that a conviction cannot be based solely on an accused’s uncorroborated admission, both CPL 70.10 (1) and 190.65 (1) correlate the corroboration rule to grand jury indictments.
On occasion, we have referred to the “legally sufficient evidence” standard for indictments as a “prima facie case” requirement (see e.g. People v Gordon,
First, we have been careful to note that the prima facie showing for an indictment refers to legally sufficient evidence that is competent—i.e., evidence that is not “inadmissible under any circumstances because [it is] subject to a per se exclusionary rule” (People v Swamp,
Second, and more relevant to this appeal, the precise language that the Legislature chose when the Criminal Procedure Law was adopted unmistakably establishes that corroboration was intended to be a component of the prima facie case for an indictment but not an information. Contrary to the specific reference to the corroboration rule in the statutes that pertain to indictments (see CPL 70.10 [1]; 190.65 [1]), the text of the information provision references “[n]on-hearsay allegations . . . establishing], if true, every element of the offense and the defendant’s commission thereof’ (CPL 100.40 [1] [c]). This statute governing informations does not state, directly or inferentially, that this type of accusatory instrument must corroborate an accused’s admission. Since clear and unequivocal statutory language is presumptively entitled to authoritative effect (see e.g. People v Ballman,
Events that occurred after the enactment of the CPL provide additional support for this conclusion. Despite the technical definition of “legally sufficient evidence,” in the 1970s a split emerged in the appellate courts as to whether an indictment had to allege corroborative facts (compare People v King,
The dissent disregards this linguistic and historical proof, choosing instead to place emphasis on phrases from People v Alejandro (
For all of these reasons, we hold that corroboration of a defendant’s admission is not a component of the prima facie case requirement for an information. In this case, the absence of allegations in the information corroborating defendant’s statements about his residences in December 2005 and February 2006 did not affect the jurisdictional validity of the information and his conviction on the guilty plea should not have been set aside (see People v Kalin,
Our holding does not dispense with corroboration for all purposes in a prosecution premised on a misdemeanor information. We simply conclude that the accusatory instrument is not defective if it does not set forth corroborative evidentiary allegations. If a case proceeds to trial, the requirement for corroboration in CPL 60.50 is triggered and a person cannot “be convicted of any offense solely upon evidence of a confession or admission made by him without additional proof that the offense charged has been committed.”
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Term should be reversed and the judgment of the Criminal Court of the City of New York, Kings County, reinstated.
Ciparick, J. (dissenting). In holding that the corroboration of a defendant’s admission is not necessary to satisfy the prima facie case requirement for an information, the majority today departs from well settled precedent and again “brushes aside the protections that must be afforded to misdemeanor defendants to ensure that such prosecutions do not become routinized or treated as insignificant or unimportant” (People v Kalin, 12
The Legislature has defined what constitutes a facially sufficient information in the Criminal Procedure Law (see CPL 100.40 [1]). Like a complaint, an information must allege “facts of an evidentiary character” (CPL 100.15 [3]) that “provide reasonable cause to believe that the defendant committed the offense charged” (CPL 100.40 [1] [b]). Unlike a complaint, however, an information must also contain “[n] on-hearsay allegations . . . [that] establish, if true, every element of the offense charged and the defendant’s commission thereof’ (CPL 100.40 [1] [c]). We have referred to this latter, more “stringent condition” as the “prima facie case” requirement (see People v Alejandro,
In Alejandro, we explained the reason that the Legislature requires “the additional showing of a prima facie case for an information lies in the unique function that an information serves under the statutory scheme” (
We affirmed our holding in Alejandro in Matter of Jahron S. (
In this case, the allegation in the information “that defendant had admitted moving to two Brooklyn residences without notification during the relevant time periods” (majority op at 250) clearly would be insufficient evidence to warrant a conviction for a violation of Correction Law § 168-f (4). As the majority notes, CPL 60.50 provides that a defendant cannot “be convicted of any offense solely upon evidence of a confession or admission made by him without additional proof that the offense charged has been committed.” Here, it is undisputed that the People did not furnish additional proof to corroborate these admissions. Although the majority asserts that CPL 60.50 “has no bearing on the adequacy” (majority op at 250) of the information in this case, our decision in Jahron S. suggests the opposite conclusion. Indeed, applying the rule enunciated in Jahron S., it should be readily apparent that the information fails to establish a prima facie case for a violation of Correction Law § 168-f (4) since the allegation rests solely on an uncorroborated admission that, if unexplained or uncontradicted, would be legally insufficient to warrant a conviction.
Nonetheless, the majority, relying on a 1969 revision to the statute governing informations, pronounces that CPL 100.40 (1) does not mandate corroboration of a defendant’s admission alleged in an information (see majority op at 252). In arriving at this conclusion, the majority finds that the prima facie requirement for informations equates to something less than legal sufficiency (see majority op at 252). This determination, however, is squarely at odds with our holdings in Alejandro and Jahron S.—cases decided long after the 1969 amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law. Indeed, in those cases, we carefully considered the “legislative purpose of establishing a special and more stringent condition for a finding of facial sufficiency of an information” (Alejandro,
The majority also finds support in a 1983 amendment to CPL 190.65 (1), a statute pertaining to indictments. Such reliance is equally misplaced. Effective April 5, 1983, the Legislature amended this statute by inserting language requiring “that the evidence supporting an indictment contain the corroboration
It is clear that the purpose of the 1983 amendment to CPL 190.65 (1) was not to fashion a distinction between indictments and informations but rather “to eliminate the uncertainty created by several Appellate Division decisions as to whether corroboration was a necessary prerequisite for indictment” (Rodney J.,
I see no reason why the majority fails to adhere to this sound precedent. Indeed, many lower courts, also following the 1983 amendment to CPL 190.65 (1), have routinely concluded that corroboration of a defendant’s admission in an information is necessary to state a prima facie case (see e.g. People v Miedema,
In sum, given that a misdemeanor defendant does not have the protections of a grand jury reviewing his case, but rather “can be prosecuted on the basis of an information alone” (Alejandro,
Order reversed, etc.
Notes
. When defendant was charged, a violation of these provisions was classified as an A misdemeanor for a first offense and a D felony for subsequent offenses (see Correction Law former § 168-t [2005]; L 1999, ch 453, § 20). Currently, a first offense is deemed an E felony and subsequent violations are denoted as D felonies (see Correction Law § 168-t; L 2007, ch 373, § 1).
. Although the dissent cites some lower court cases that are consistent with its position (see dissenting op at 257), that view has not been shared
The Legislature has defined “legally sufficient evidence” as “competent evidence which, if accepted as true, would establish every element of an offense charged and the defendant’s commission thereof; except that such evidence is not legally sufficient when corroboration required by law is absent” (CPL 70.10 [1]).