People v Quinones
2008 NY Slip Op 02020 [49 AD3d 323]
March 11, 2008
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, May 14, 2008


The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
David Quinones, Appellant.

[*1] Susanna De La Pava, New York City, for appellant.

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Timothy C. Stone of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Michael J. Obus, J.), entered on or about August 1, 2006, which denied defendant's motion to be resentenced pursuant to the Drug Law Reform Act (DLRA) of 2005, unanimously affirmed.

A defendant seeking resentencing on a class A-II felony conviction under the 2005 DLRA (L 2005, ch 643, § 1) must be eligible for merit time under Correction Law § 803 (1) (d). Correction Law § 803 (1) (d) (ii) provides that merit time is not available to any person serving an indeterminate sentence for, among other things, a violent felony. On January 6, 1999, defendant received a group of sentences for both drug and nondrug convictions. These sentences included a term of 21/3 to 7 years for a violent felony offense, to be served concurrently with life sentences on his class A-II felony drug convictions. Defendant did not preserve his present argument that the maximum term of the violent felony sentence had allegedly expired before he made his application, rendering him eligible for resentencing, and we decline to review it in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we also reject it on the merits (see People v Merejildo, 45 AD3d 429 [2007]). Defendant is in the same situation as the defendant in Merejildo, except that this case involves concurrent rather than consecutive sentences. Pursuant to Penal Law § 70.30 (1) (a), "concurrent sentences represent a single punishment measured by the sentence for the highest grade offense into which all concurrent sentences merge." (People v Ramirez, 89 NY2d 444, 450 [1996]; see also Matter of Deary v Goord, 32 AD3d 1074 [2006].) Accordingly, the motion court correctly concluded that because defendant is incarcerated pursuant to a judgment [*2]that includes a sentence for a violent felony, he is ineligible for merit time under Correction Law § 803 (1) (d) (ii) and thus is ineligible for resentencing. Concur—Tom, J.P., Buckley, Sweeny and Moskowitz, JJ.