People v Bruce
2023 NY Slip Op 05012 [220 AD3d 989]
October 5, 2023
Appellate Division, Third Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, December 6, 2023


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

Rural Law Center of New York, Inc., Plattsburgh (Keith F. Schockmel of counsel), for appellant.

Gary M. Pasqua, District Attorney, Canton (Matthew L. Peabody of counsel), for respondent.

Egan Jr., J.P. Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of St. Lawrence County (John F. Richey, J.), rendered January 6, 2020, convicting defendant upon his plea of guilty of the crime of attempted promoting prison contraband in the first degree.

Defendant was charged by indictment with two counts of promoting prison contraband in the first degree for possessing two separate sharpened pieces of metal while serving a prison sentence. Pursuant to a plea agreement, defendant pleaded guilty to one count of the reduced charge of attempted promoting prison contraband in the first degree and waived his right to appeal.[FN*] Defendant was thereafter sentenced, as a second felony offender, to the agreed-upon term of 11/2 to 3 years in prison, to run consecutively to the sentence that he was then serving. Defendant appeals.

We affirm. Defendant's sole contention on appeal is that alleged defects in the People's presentation of certain evidence and testimony before the grand jury impaired the integrity of the grand jury proceeding. Our review of defendant's claims, however, reveal that the flaws alleged are of a technical or evidentiary nature and do not rise to the level of a constitutional or jurisdictional defect implicating the integrity of the process. Thus, they have been forfeited by his unchallenged guilty plea (see People v Guerrero, 28 NY3d 110, 115-116 [2016]; People v Wilburn, 158 AD3d 894, 894-895 [3d Dept 2018], lv denied 31 NY3d 1123 [2018]; People v Rivera, 93 AD3d 409, 409-410 [1st Dept 2012], lv denied 19 NY3d 866 [2012]; People v Robertson, 279 AD2d 711, 712-713 [3d Dept 2001], lv denied 96 NY2d 805 [2001]).

Lynch, Reynolds Fitzgerald, Ceresia and Fisher, JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.

Footnotes


Footnote *:Defendant does not challenge his waiver of appeal.