Comments on New Legislation Proposed in the 2016 Report of the Advisory Committee on Criminal Law and Procedure
SUMMARY
The Criminal Justice Operations Committee (Risa Gerson, Chair) provided comments on a series of legislative proposals put forth in the 2016 Report of the Chief Judge’s Advisory Committee on Criminal Law and Procedure. The Committee supported four of the proposals: the addition of “post judgment motions” to the list of proceedings for which a convicted defendant may receive a copy of the pre-sentence investigation report; providing that sealed youthful offender convictions will also prohibit disclosure of the arrest and pending charges prior to conviction; providing the authority to grant poor person relief to the sentencing judge upon application of defense counsel; and amendments to conform statutes related to double jeopardy with case law. The Committee opposed a measure to amend existing legislation to delay sealing of non-criminal convictions – where the sentence was a conditional discharge – until after termination of that conditional discharge period (set by statute at one year for most non-criminal convictions and three years for marijuana-related non-criminal convictions). This delayed sealing would have the arguably unintended consequence of delaying coverage of important state and local employment discrimination protections to individuals convicted of these petty offenses.
BILL INFORMATION
A.9519 (AM Mosley) – relates to the availability of pre-sentence reports (NYS 2016)
A.9520 (AM Lentol) – relates to preliminary proceedings involving apparently eligible juvenile offenders (NYS 2016)
A.9522 (AM Richardson) / S.7246 (Sen. DeFrancisco) – authorizes a sentencing court to consider an application for poor person relief on appeal (NYS 2016)
S.6939 (Sen. Akshar) – relates to the sealing of petty offenses (NYS 2016)
A.9521 (AM Joyner) – relates to erroneously excluded evidence and trial orders of dismissal (NYS 2016)
