People v Altamirano
2019 NY Slip Op 00293 [168 AD3d 870]
January 16, 2019
Appellate Division, Second Department
As corrected through Wednesday, March 6, 2019


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

Laurette D. Mulry, Riverhead, NY (Alfred J. Cicale of counsel), for appellant.

Timothy D. Sini, District Attorney, Riverhead, NY (Edward A. Bannan of counsel), forrespondent.

Appeal by the defendant, as limited by his motion, from a sentence of the Supreme Court,Suffolk County (Martin Efman, J.), imposed December 7, 2016, upon his plea of guilty, on theground that the sentence was excessive.

Ordered that the sentence is affirmed.

As the People correctly concede, the defendant's purported waiver of the right to appeal wasinvalid. The Supreme Court failed to confirm that the defendant understood the nature of theright to appeal and the consequences of waiving it (see People v Brown, 122 AD3d 133, 142 [2014]). Although therecord of the proceedings reflects that the defendant executed a written waiver of his right toappeal, no written waiver is contained in the record on appeal. Moreover, the court failed toascertain on the record whether the defendant was aware of the waiver's contents and fullyunderstood its nature and consequences (see People v Iovino, 142 AD3d 561, 561-562 [2016]; People vBrown, 122 AD3d at 145). Thus, the waiver does not preclude review of the defendant'sexcessive sentence claim.

However, the sentence imposed was not excessive (see People v Suitte, 90 AD2d 80[1982]). Mastro, J.P., Leventhal, Duffy and LaSalle, JJ., concur.


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.