People ex rel. Eaddy v Goord
2008 NY Slip Op 01446 [48 AD3d 1307]
February 20, 2008
Appellate Division, Fourth Department
As corrected through Wednesday, April 16, 2008


The People of the State of New York ex rel. William Eaddy,Appellant, v Glenn S. Goord, as Commissioner of New York State Department of CorrectionalServices, Respondent.

[*1]Wyoming County-attica Legal Aid Bureau, Attica (Norman P. Effman of counsel), forpetitioner-appellant.

Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, Albany (Emil J. Bove, Jr., of counsel), forrespondent-respondent.

Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Wyoming County (Mark H. Dadd, A.J.),entered December 5, 2006 in a habeas corpus proceeding. The judgment denied the petition.

It is hereby ordered that the judgment so appealed from is unanimously reversed on the lawwithout costs, the habeas corpus proceeding is converted to a CPLR article 78 proceeding in thenature of prohibition, the petition is granted, and judgment is granted in favor of petitioner asfollows:

"It is ADJUDGED that respondent is prohibited from adding a period of postreleasesupervision to petitioner's sentence of imprisonment."

Memorandum: On July 5, 2001, petitioner was sentenced in Supreme Court, Queens County,to a determinate term of imprisonment of six years upon his conviction of rape in the first degree.The court did not impose a period of postrelease supervision. During petitioner's imprisonment,respondent, New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS), added a five-yearperiod of postrelease supervision to petitioner's sentence of imprisonment. At the time of hisrelease from imprisonment in December 2005, petitioner refused to sign a form indicating that hewould adhere to the terms of postrelease supervision, and he was returned to DOCS in May 2006following his arrest for violating those terms. Petitioner then commenced this proceeding seekinga writ of habeas corpus on the ground that he was being illegally detained beyond the six-yearterm of imprisonment imposed by the court. Here, as in People ex rel. Burch v Goord 48 AD3d 1306 [2008]), the court relied in part on our decisions in People v Hollenbach(307 AD2d 776 [2003], lv denied 100 NY2d 642 [2003]) and People v Crump(302 AD2d 901 [2003], lv denied 100 NY2d 537 [2003]) in denying the petition.Petitioner has subsequently been released to the Division of Parole until December 2010.

We note at the outset that a writ of habeas corpus is no longer available to petitionerinasmuch as he has been released on parole (see People ex rel. Murray v Bartlett, 89NY2d [*2]1002 [1997]). Nevertheless, we convert thisproceeding to one pursuant to CPLR article 78 in the nature of prohibition, and we consider themerits of the appeal (see CPLR 103 [c]; People ex rel. McBride v Alexander, 46 AD3d 849 [2007]; seegenerally People ex rel. Brown v New York State Div. of Parole, 70 NY2d 391, 398 [1987]).

For the same reasons set forth in our decision in Burch, we reverse the judgmentherein. We again note that, to the extent that our prior decisions in Hollenbach andCrump hold otherwise, they are no longer to be followed. Present—Hurlbutt, J.P.,Smith, Centra, Green and Gorski, JJ.


NYPTI Decisions © 2026 is a project of New York Prosecutors Training Institute (NYPTI) made possible by leveraging the work we've done providing online research and tools to prosecutors.

NYPTI would like to thank New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, New York State Senate's Open Legislation Project, New York State Unified Court System, New York State Law Reporting Bureau and Free Law Project for their invaluable assistance making this project possible.

Install the free RECAP extensions to help contribute to this archive. See https://free.law/recap/ for more information.