People v Ramirez
2008 NY Slip Op 02767 [49 AD3d 475]
March 27, 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
Juan Ramirez, Appellant.

[*1] Steven Banks, The Legal Aid Society, New York City (Laura Lieberman Cohen of counsel), for appellant.

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Dennis Rambaud of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Roger S. Hayes, J.), entered on or about May 19, 2006, as amended September 6, 2006, which adjudicated defendant a second felony offender whose prior felony conviction was for a violent felony and specified and informed him that the court would resentence him to a term of 15 years for his conviction of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree, unanimously affirmed, and the matter remitted to Supreme Court, New York County, for further proceedings upon defendant's application for resentencing.

There was no predicate felony adjudication at the time of defendant's original sentence of 15 years to life, and such an adjudication would have been superfluous under the law existing at that time. Defendant's request for resentencing placed the case in a procedural posture that required the People to file a predicate felony statement, and the court was required to sentence defendant as a second felony drug offender whose prior conviction is for a violent felony (see People v Alcequier, 43 AD3d 699 [2007]). People v Winthrow (38 AD3d 323 [2007]) is not to the contrary, since it deals with a different procedural situation that is addressed by CPL 400.21 (8). Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Saxe, Buckley and Catterson, JJ.