THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK RESPONDENT v. ROBERT JOHNSON DEFENDANT APPELLANT (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

It is hereby ORDERED that the judgment so appealed from is unanimously affirmed.

Memorandum: Defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him upon his plea of guilty of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree (Penal Law § 220.16 [1]) and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (§ 265.03 [3]). We affirm.

Defendant contends that County Court erred in denying his second supplemental motion to dismiss the indictment on statutory speedy trial grounds (see CPL 30.30), arguing that the People should be charged with a 15-day period from March 21, 2022 to April 5, 2022, which caused their period of unreadiness for trial to exceed six months. It is well settled that in felony cases such as this one, CPL 30.30 requires the People to be ready for trial within “six months of the commencement of the criminal action” (CPL 30.30 [1] [a]; see People v England, 84 NY2d 1, 4 [1994], rearg denied 84 NY2d 846 [1994]). “Whether the People have satisfied this obligation is generally determined by computing the time elapsed between the filing of the first accusatory instrument and the People's declaration of readiness, subtracting any periods of delay that are excludable under the terms of the statute and then adding to the result any postreadiness periods of delay that are actually attributable to the People and are ineligible for an exclusion” (People v Cortes, 80 NY2d 201, 208 [1992], rearg denied 81 NY2d 1068 [1993]; see People v Barnett, 158 AD3d 1279, 1280 [4th Dept 2018], lv denied 31 NY3d 1078 [2018]). “[A] defendant bears the initial burden of alleging that the People were not ready for trial within the statutorily prescribed time period” (People v Allard, 28 NY3d 41, 45 [2016]; see People v Session, 206 AD3d 1678, 1680 [4th Dept 2022]). The People then “bear the burden of demonstrating sufficient excludable time” (People v Kendzia, 64 NY2d 331, 338 [1985]; see Allard, 28 NY3d at 45). “[P]ostreadiness delay may be charged to the People when the delay is attributable to their inaction and directly implicates their ability to proceed to trial” (People v Brown, 28 NY3d 392, 404 [2016] [internal quotation marks omitted]).

Here, the criminal action was commenced on October 3, 2020, when the felony complaint was filed (see CPL 1.20 [17]; Session, 206 AD3d at 1680). Inasmuch as defendant was charged with a felony, the People were permitted no more than six calendar months of delay or, in this case, 182 days (see CPL 30.30 [1] [a]; Cortes, 80 NY2d at 207 n 3). There is no dispute that defendant met his “initial burden of alleging that the People were not ready for trial within the statutorily prescribed time period” (Allard, 28 NY3d at 45; see CPL 30.30 [1] [a]; People v Anderson, 188 AD3d 1699, 1699 [4th Dept 2020], lv denied 36 NY3d 1055 [2021]), thereby shifting the burden to the People to demonstrate “sufficient excludable time” (Kendzia, 64 NY2d at 338). Indeed, based on concessions contained in the parties’ briefs, and the time previously computed by the court on defendant's first speedy trial motion (which is not at issue on appeal), there also is no dispute here that, excluding the 15-day period at issue, the People should be charged with 176 days. Consequently, we do not consider on appeal whether the court properly concluded that those 176 days were chargeable to the People.

With respect to the 15-day period in question, defendant contends that those days should have been charged to the People because, at the start of that period, the People had requested and obtained an adjournment of a suppression hearing held in connection with the separate suppression motions of defendant and the codefendant. The People had requested the adjournment due to the unavailability of one of their witnesses, who was to testify with respect to the codefendant's suppression motion. Defendant notes that he did not consent to that adjournment. We reject defendant's contention.

Specifically, we conclude that the court properly determined that those 15 days could not be charged to the People inasmuch as that delay did not pertain to defendant’s case. As relevant here, CPL 30.30 (4) (a) provides that time is excludable for “a reasonable period of delay resulting from other proceedings concerning the defendant, including[, inter alia,] ․ the period during which [pretrial motions] are under consideration by the court.” Indeed, it is well settled that the People are not chargeable with the time that elapses while the court is considering a defendant's suppression motion (see People v Banks, 240 AD3d 1307, 1311 [4th Dept 2025]; People v Jordan, 220 AD3d 1187, 1188 [4th Dept 2023]; People v Abergut, 202 AD3d 1497, 1498 [4th Dept 2022], lv denied 38 NY3d 1068 [2022]).

Here, the record establishes that the People's request for an adjournment on March 21, 2022 pertained only to the suppression hearing insofar as it related to the codefendant's case and, therefore, that time could only be charged against the People with respect to that separate prosecution. At the time of the requested adjournment, there was no dispute that the absent witness was only relevant to the codefendant's suppression motion which, unlike defendant's motion, was also based on statements allegedly made by the codefendant. The witness was not relevant to defendant's motion, which related solely to the suppression of tangible evidence. Indeed, at the same appearance, after hearing testimony from three witnesses, the court noted that those witnesses constituted “the People's proof with respect to” defendant’s suppression motion. In other words, at the end of the March 21, 2022 appearance, the People's case on defendant’s motion was closed, whereas their proof on the codefendant's motion was not. Further, we note that when the parties reconvened on April 6, 2022 for the continuation of the codefendant's suppression hearing, the court reiterated that the People had “indicated that [they were] finished with [their] proof with respect to” defendant's part of the suppression hearing. Thus, the record established that the adjournment of the suppression hearing on March 21, 2022 was confined to the codefendant's case and that because the People's case on defendant's suppression motion was over as of that date, the motion was under consideration by the court as of that time, allowing the exclusion of the relevant 15 days pursuant to CPL 30.30 (4) (a).

To the extent defendant contends that the People were chargeable with the delay attributable to the codefendant's case—i.e., the 15-day period at issue here—we note that, as a general matter, where there are speedy trial motions made with respect to multiple defendants, the time chargeable to the People in each case must be analyzed on a defendant-by-defendant basis (see generally People v David, 253 AD2d 642, 643-644 [1st Dept 1998], lv denied 92 NY2d 948 [1998]; People v Varuzzi, 179 Misc 2d 716, 718-720 [Sup Ct, Queens County 1999]). Indeed, this Court has previously held that, in the statutory speedy trial context, the People's delay in a codefendant's case “had no bearing on the People's readiness for trial in” a separate defendant's case and did not warrant charging time to the People in that case (People v Ransom, 226 AD2d 1066, 1067 [4th Dept 1996], lv denied 88 NY2d 940 [1996]). Thus, where, as here, the record shows that the 15-day delay at issue is unconnected to defendant's case, the People could not be charged with that time.

Consequently, because the People could only be charged with a total of 176 days, we conclude that the court properly denied defendant's second supplemental motion to dismiss the indictment on speedy trial grounds (see generally CPL 30.30).

Entered: July 24, 2026

Ann Dillon Flynn

Clerk of the Court