People v Scott
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Attorneys and Parties
Brief Summary
Criminal law; eligibility for resentencing under CPL 440.46 [Drug Law Reform Act of 2009 resentencing provision for certain class B drug felonies serving indeterminate sentences] when the defendant is also serving a later-imposed sentence for murder based on an earlier-committed crime.
County Court held that Scott was ineligible for resentencing because his 1999 murder conviction was an exclusion offense under CPL 440.46 (5) [bars resentencing for a person serving a sentence on, or having a predicate felony conviction for, an exclusion offense].
The Appellate Division reversed the order denying Scott's application for resentencing and remitted for further proceedings under CPL 440.46.
The court held that the murder conviction was not an exclusion offense because Scott had not been previously convicted of murder when he was convicted of the 1998 drug felonies for which he sought resentencing, and the 10-year lookback did not reach the 1997 murder crimes because only pre-drug-felony incarceration time is excluded from that calculation.
Background
In 1998, Rashad H. Scott was convicted of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree and criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, and he received concurrent indeterminate prison terms of 7 to 21 years. In 1999, he was convicted of two counts of murder in the second degree for crimes committed in 1997 and was sentenced to an aggregate indeterminate term of 63 5/6 years to life, consecutive to the drug sentence. In March 2023, he moved for resentencing on the 1998 drug conviction under CPL 440.46 [Drug Law Reform Act of 2009 resentencing provision for certain class B drug felonies serving indeterminate sentences].
Lower Court Decision
County Court denied the application, reasoning that Scott's 1999 murder conviction constituted an exclusion offense under CPL 440.46 (5) [bars resentencing for a person serving a sentence on, or having a predicate felony conviction for, an exclusion offense], making him ineligible for Drug Law Reform Act relief.
Appellate Division Reversal
The Appellate Division reversed. It explained that under CPL 440.46 (5) (a) [defines an exclusion offense as a crime for which the person was previously convicted within the preceding 10 years, excluding certain incarceration time, if it was a violent felony or another offense ineligible for merit time], the statutory terms "previous felony" and "present felony" mean the exclusion offense must have resulted in a conviction before the drug conviction for which resentencing is sought. Although Scott's murder crimes were committed in 1997 and he is currently serving that sentence, he was not convicted of murder until 1999, after the 1998 drug conviction. The court also rejected the People's argument that Scott's continuous incarceration brought the murder crimes within the 10-year lookback, holding that only pre-drug-felony incarceration time is excluded from the calculation. Because the resentencing motion was filed in March 2023, the 10-year lookback extended only to March 2013, so the 1997 crimes did not disqualify him. The matter was remitted for further resentencing proceedings.
Legal Significance
The decision reinforces a strict textual reading of CPL 440.46. A later conviction for an earlier-committed serious offense does not automatically become an exclusion offense for Drug Law Reform Act resentencing. The ruling also confirms that, for the 10-year lookback, only incarceration occurring before the commission of the qualifying drug felony is excluded from the time calculation.
For Drug Law Reform Act resentencing, a defendant is not disqualified by a later-obtained conviction unless that offense was a previous conviction at the time of the drug conviction, and post-drug incarceration does not extend the exclusion-offense lookback period.