The People v. Jarrod BrownThe People v. Jarrod Brown
Lead Opinion
The issue presented by this appeal is whether the 2011 amendments to CPL 440.46 expanded the class of defendants eligible for resentencing under the Drug Law Reform Act (DLRA) to include those who are on parole at the time resentencing is sought. We left this question open in People v Paulin (
In the summer of 2001, defendant sold cocaine to an undercover police officer in Queens. On May 30, 2002, defendant pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, a class B felony, and was sentenced to an indeterminate prison term of 6 to 12 years. He was conditionally released on April 15, 2011, with a maximum expiration date of July 16, 2017.
While on parole for the instant offense, defendant moved for resentencing pursuant to CPL 440.46. The People opposed on grounds that he was ineligible for resentencing under that provision because he was not currently incarcerated. Defendant contended that he was eligible for relief due to the 2011 amendments to section 440.46, which now reflected the merged New York State Department of Correctional Services and New York State Division of Parole under a single agency — the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) (see L 2011, ch 62, § 1, part C, § 1, subpart B, § 79).
The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed holding that the plain language of section 440.46, when read together with Executive Law § 259-i (2) (b), meant that non-incarcerated defendants on parole were in the “custody” of DOCCS and, thus, were eligible for resentencing (People v Brown,
“[T]he governing rule of statutory construction is that courts are obliged to interpret a statute to effectuate the intent of the Legislature, and when the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, it should be construed so as to give effect to the plain meaning of the words used” (People v Williams,
Even if the plain language of CPL 440.46 were ambiguous, further analysis would lead us to the same conclusion. First, the People’s contention that the legislature limits use of the term “custody” to defendants who are incarcerated is contradicted by the language of several statutes. Executive Law § 259-i (2) (b), for example, states that a parolee shall be in the “legal custody” of DOCCS until, among other possibilities, “return to imprisonment in the custody of the department” (see also Correction Law § 275 [using both “legal custody” and “custody” in reference to a person who has been granted conditional release]; CPL 410.50 [1] [“Custody. A person who is under a sentence of probation is in the legal custody of the court that imposed it pending expiration or termination of the period of the sentence”]). In fact, multiple provisions of Executive Law § 259-i use the phrase “imprisonment in the custody of the department” or “inmate [in] the custody of the department” to clarify that they refer only to incarcerated persons (see Executive Law § 259-i [2] [c] [A] [iv]; [d] [i], [ii]; [3] [a] [i]).
Furthermore, in Matter of Hawkins v Coughlin (
Contrary to the People’s contention, the 2011 amendments were not purely budgetary or technical changes. The 2011 law emphasized “the evolution of the sentencing structure” toward a “focus on reentry,” and the “commonality of purpose governing the fundamental missions of both agencies” to “provide for a seamless network for the care, custody, treatment and supervision of a person, from the day a sentence of state imprisonment commences, until the day such person is discharged from supervision in the community” (L 2011, ch 62, § 1, part C, § 1, subpart A, § 1).
Finally, remedial statutes such as the DLRA should be interpreted broadly to accomplish their goals — in this case the reform of unduly harsh sentencing imposed under pre-2005 law (see McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 321 [“Generally, remedial statutes are liberally construed to carry out the reforms intended and to promote justice”]). In People v Sosa (
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.
Notes
As originally enacted, to be eligible for resentencing under CPL 440.46 an individual had to be convicted of a class B drug felony and “[a] person in the custody of the department of correctional services” (L 2009, ch 56, § 1, part AAA, § 9 [enacting CPL 440.46 (1)]). Accordingly, only incarcerated individuals were eligible to apply for resentencing under CPL 440.46 (see People v Paulin,
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). When we decided People v Paulin (
After their convictions for class B drug felonies, Paulin and Pratts, the defendant in a companion case, were sentenced and incarcerated, eventually were released on parole, violated their parole and so were reincarcerated. When the 2009 DLRA took effect, they applied for resentencing. The wrinkle in Paulin and Pratts, then, was that the defendants were in prison for violating their parole, and the question presented was whether this made them ineligible for resentencing under CPL 440.46.
After the appeals had been briefed but before they were argued, the Governor signed chapter 62 of the Laws of 2011. As part of the State’s enacted budget for fiscal year 2011-2012, various State agencies and entities were restructured, principally to save money by streamlining operations and rationalizing missions. Chapter 62, an article VII budget bill, made those changes to permanent law necessary to effectuate or reflect several of these restructurings, including the merger of the Department of Correctional Services and the Division of Parole to form a combined Department of Corrections and Com
Defense counsel for Paulin and Pratts wrote to inform us of this development. He recognized that chapter 62 did not govern his clients’ appeals because the orders denying them resentencing relief predated the legislation’s effective date. He nonetheless contended that “the amendments, together with the new law’s integrated statement of legislative intent, confirm what we argued in our previously filed briefs, i.e., that a plain-language interpretation of CPL § 440.46 advances the legislative intent that motivated the 2009 DLRA.”
We subsequently held in Paulin that “prisoners who have been paroled, and then reincarcerated for violating their parole, are not for that reason barred from seeking relief under [CPL 440.46]” (
The Court now holds that this name change expanded resentencing eligibility under the 2009 DLRA “to include those who are on parole at the time resentencing is sought” (see majority op at 249). The majority principally relies on the text of section 440.46, as amended by chapter 62, and the principle that “remedial statutes such as the DLRA should be interpreted broadly to accomplish their goals — in this case the reform of
While we depend first and foremost on the text of a statute to determine what the legislature intended, we have always recognized that text may not properly be read in isolation and that statutes must be construed as a whole, i.e., text derives meaning within a context (see Friedman v Connecticut Gen. Life Ins. Co.,
Subpart B, by contrast, merely enacts amendments as necessary to reflect the merger. In furtherance of this purpose, sections 1 through 48 of subpart B make name change and other minor technical amendments to the Correction Law, and sections 49 through 173 march through 35 other titles of New York’s Consolidated Laws, substituting “Department of Corrections and Community Supervision” for “Department of Correctional Services” or “Division of Parole.”
Thus, while the merger itself may be said to carry out the legislature’s judgment that a unitary agency responsible for all offenders makes sense for purposes of sentencing and rehabilitative as well as budgetary policy, the same cannot be said for the 2011 amendment of section 440.46. The majority gives substantive law meaning to a mere name change amendment, which is belied by the context in which it was adopted as part of an article VII budget bill. And since this name change amendment was not intended to have any remedial effect, its enactment presents no occasion for us to interpret section 440.46 differently and more broadly now than we did in Paulin.
The majority highlights, and obviously agrees with, policy considerations that favor allowing nonincarcerated parolees to apply for the sentencing relief made available by section 440.46. But it is up to the legislature, not the courts, to decide whether to expand this provision’s ameliorative sweep, and I cannot agree that the legislature has done so. At most, the 2011 amendment of section 440.46 created an ambiguity easily resolved by considering its place within chapter 62, § 1, part C as a whole. Finally, the restructuring of State agencies and entities through the budget process is routine. I therefore worry about the potential consequences of today’s decision to alter substantive law on the authority of a run-of-the-mill name change amendment appearing in an article VII budget bill. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
Order affirmed.
. The majority also states that its interpretation “corrects the anomaly under the pre-merger law of permitting resentencing for parole violators who have been returned to prison, but not for those who had complied with the terms of their parole,” citing Paulin (majority op at 252). In Paulin, however, we expressly rejected the idea, advanced by the People in that case, that any such purported “anomaly” created an absurd result that the legislature never would have intended.
. The titles amended were the Abandoned Property Law, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, the Civil Practice Law and Rules, the Civil Rights Law, the Civil Service Law, the County Law, the Court of Claims Act, the Criminal Procedure Law, the Education Law, the Election Law, the Environmental Conservation Law, the Executive Law, the Facilities Development Corporation Act, the Family Court Act, the General Business Law, the General Municipal Law, the Labor Law, the Legislative Law, the Mental Hygiene Law, the Municipal Home Rule Law, the Penal Law, the Public Buildings Law, the Public Health Law, the Public Officers Law, the Railroad Law, the Retirement and Social Security Law, the Social Services Law, the State Administrative Procedure Act, the State Finance Law, the State Technology Law, the Surrogate’s Court Procedure Act, the Tax Law, the Town Law, the Vehicle and Traffic Law and the Workers’ Compensation Law.