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93 Misc. 2d 655

People v. Conrad

New York County Courts

Decided December 2, 1976

New York County Courts · decided 1976-12-02

Decided 1976-12-02

¶1OPINION OF THE COURT

Hyman T. Maas, J.

¶2The issue presented on this appeal is whether the trial court’s negligence in scheduling a jury trial is a basis to grant a motion to dismiss for failure to grant defendant a speedy trial under CPL 30.30.

¶3CPL 30.30 (subd 1) explicitly states that a motion to dismiss "must be granted where the people are not ready for trial”. The negligence of the trial court cannot be imputed to the People or prosecutor. The trial court is not "the people” referred to in the statute.

¶4*656The clear legislative intent in CPL 30.30 was to compel the prosecutor to prepare to try his cases within the three-month time frame. To accept the trial court’s misinterpretation of CPL 30.30 would do violence to the intent of that statute.

¶5The Sturgis case (38 NY2d 625) cited by defendant is distinguishable from the instant case, in that Sturgis clearly dealt with the People’s backlog of cases, and exclusionary periods and did not involve negligence of the trial court.

¶6The Henrietta Town Court’s order of dismissal is reversed and the case remanded for trial.

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