Appeal from a judgment of the City Court of Yonkers, Westchester County (Michael A. Martinelli, J.), rendered June 6, 2005. The appeal from the judgment, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of criminal contempt in the second degree, brings up for review the order of protection issued on June 6, 2005.

Judgment of conviction affirmed.

Defendant pleaded guilty to criminal contempt in the second degree (Penal Law § 215.50 [3]) and received a sentence of time served. It appears from the June 6, 2005 sentencing minutes that the court below stated that the order of protection would remain in effect "for a year from today." However, both the judge below and defendant
signed a written order of protection providing that it would remain in effect from June 6, 2005 until June 6, 2008.

At the outset, it should be noted that since the order of protection dated June 6, 2005 was issued at the time of sentence, it is reviewable as being "among the orders and rulings that a defendant may challenge in an appeal from a judgment of conviction" (People v Nieves, 2 NY3d 310, 315 [2004]), even though it is not a part of the defendant's sentence (id., at 316; see also CPL 1.20 [15]). However, while the June 6, 2005 order of protection is reviewable, there has been little, if anything, preserved by defendant in the record which would warrant a modification of said order on the merits of the case. The principal issue that remains before us is whether, in [*2]view of the court's oral statement at sentencing that its order of protection was to last one year, the written order signed by both it and defendant, to the effect that the order of protection was to last three years, should be deemed nugatory and illegal.

A court has inherent power to rectify its own mistakes (People v Minaya, 54 NY2d 360 [1981], cert denied 455 US 1024 [1982]). In Minaya (54 NY2d at 365), the court observed:
"The fact that the error may have resulted from the court's own inadvertence in pronouncing the sentence does not make the error any less correctable. The inherent power of a court to correct its own errors extends to a statement or even formal pronouncement made by a court which may create apparent ambiguity' but which is, plainly, the result of some inadvertence on his [the Judge's] part, and which our reason tells us is a mere mistake" [citation omitted]).
It is clear that a mistake was made by the court below in its oral pronouncement of the order of protection at sentence and, thus, such pronouncement was properly subject to subsequent correction. It is undisputed that defendant brought a motion in the court below after sentencing to correct what he asserted was the error, i.e., the statement in the formal written order of protection providing for a term of three years, but that the court below insisted that its oral statement indicating a duration of one year at sentencing was incorrect. Under the circumstances, the order of protection providing for a three-year period should not be disturbed.

Rudolph, P.J., McCabe and Tanenbaum, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: July 12, 2007