People v Brown
2020 NY Slip Op 00944 [180 AD3d 1341]
February 7, 2020
Appellate Division, Fourth Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, April 1, 2020


[*1]
 The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Gerald Brown, Appellant.

Frank H. Hiscock Legal Aid Society, Syracuse (Sara A. Goldfarb of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

William J. Fitzpatrick, District Attorney, Syracuse (Kenneth H. Tyler, Jr., of counsel), for respondent.

Appeal from a judgment of the Onondaga County Court (Thomas J. Miller, J.), rendered June 5, 2017. The judgment convicted defendant upon his plea of guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree.

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 weapon in the second degree (Penal Law § 265.03 [3]). We agree with defendant that he did not validly waive his right to appeal because County Court's oral colloquy "utterly 'mischaracterized the nature of the right' " to appeal (People v Thomas, 34 NY3d 545, 565 [2019]), inasmuch as "the court's advisement as to the rights relinquished [by defendant] was incorrect and irredeemable under the circumstances" (id. at 562). Specifically, the court erroneously informed defendant that, by waiving the right to appeal, he could obtain no further review of the conviction or sentence by a higher court—crucially omitting any mention of the several rights that survive the waiver of the right to appeal (see id. at 562-567). Thus, the colloquy was insufficient to ensure that the waiver was voluntary, knowing, and intelligent (see id. at 562-567). Nevertheless, we conclude that the sentence is not unduly harsh or severe. Present—Whalen, P.J., Curran, Troutman, Winslow and Bannister, JJ.