| People v Taveras |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 04267 [63 AD3d 401] |
| June 2, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v JoseLuis Taveras, Appellant. |
—[*1] Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Sheila L. Bautista of counsel), forrespondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Charles H. Solomon, J.), rendered July 18,2005, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of criminal possession of a controlledsubstance in the second degree, and sentencing him to a term of eight years to life, to be servedconsecutively to a sentence upon a New Jersey conviction, unanimously modified, as a matter ofdiscretion in the interest of justice, to the extent of directing that the sentence be servedconcurrently with the New Jersey sentence, and otherwise affirmed. Order, same court andJustice, entered on or about April 10, 2008, which specified and informed defendant that thecourt would resentence him to a term of 7½ years, unanimously affirmed, and the matterremanded to Supreme Court, New York County for further proceedings upon defendant'sapplication for resentencing.
Although we decline to disturb the proposed resentence under the Drug Law Reform Act (L2005, ch 643, § 1), which reduces the original sentence to 7½ years, we find theoriginal sentence excessive to the extent that it directed the sentences to run consecutively.Because of the procedural posture of this case, the rule that resentencing under the Drug LawReform Act does not permit the issue of concurrent versus consecutive sentencing to be revisited(see People v Vaughan, — AD3d —, 2009 NY Slip Op 02394[2009]) does not apply. We have before us, not only the appeal from the proposed resentence,but defendant's direct appeal from the original judgment of conviction. Defendant filed a timelynotice of appeal from that conviction, the appeal has never [*2]been dismissed, and we deem defendant to have perfected thatappeal, under the circumstances presented, by way of his appeal from the proposed resentence(see CPLR 2001). Concur—Gonzalez, P.J., Mazzarelli, Buckley, Renwick andAbdus-Salaam, JJ.