ALBANY (LN) — New York's Court of Appeals on Monday unanimously reversed the Appellate Division and revived a misdemeanor defendant's CPL 30.30 speedy-trial motion, holding that a written motion filed before a bench trial commenced was timely as a matter of law and that the general reasonable-notice requirement cannot override the statute's specific pre-trial deadline.
Naim Roper was charged in July 2011 — approximately six months after he allegedly assaulted a corrections officer at Rikers Island — with third-degree assault, second-degree menacing, second-degree harassment, and second-degree obstruction of governmental administration. Over the following months, the People answered not ready multiple times, filing off-calendar statements of readiness in between. The trial court itself noted at one point that it might be necessary "to release the defendant on 30.30 grounds" and told the People they "ha[d] to be ready next time."
On July 23, 2012, both sides finally answered ready and the calendar-part judge adjourned the case overnight to a trial part. The next morning, defense counsel told the calendar-part judge and the People she intended to file a CPL 30.30 motion. The People refused to accept it. The calendar-part judge noted in the court file that defendant had "file[d]" a 30.30 motion and that he would "handle this."
That afternoon in the trial part, the judge denied the written motion as untimely and lacking notice, and the People reduced the charges to attempted assault in the third degree, menacing, and harassment before the case proceeded to a bench trial. Roper was convicted on all counts and sentenced to concurrent terms of 90 days on the attempted assault count, 90 days on the menacing charge, and 15 days on the harassment violation.
The Appellate Division, First Department affirmed in 2024, holding that the trial court "properly denied defendant's CPL 30.30 motion, after the case was sent out for trial, as untimely and not made upon reasonable notice to the People."
Judge Garcia, writing for a unanimous court, said that ruling misread the Court of Appeals' own 1984 precedent, People v Lawrence. Lawrence held that a defendant could not defer a speedy-trial motion until after a verdict, but it also stated that a defendant "[u]nquestionably . . . had an absolute right to make [a] motion" on the day trial commenced. Roper did exactly that.
The court also rejected the People's fallback argument that the reasonable-notice provision of CPL 210.45 independently rendered the motion untimely. "Whatever effect, if any, the reasonable notice provision of CPL 210.45 (1) may have on the timing of other types of motions, it cannot as a general statute override the specific timing provisions of CPL 170.30 (2), either to expand or contract that timing," Garcia wrote. The court held that the motion was made in writing and provided the requisite notice.
The opinion acknowledged that last-minute speedy-trial motions create practical headaches — a trial court need not halt proceedings and may proceed to verdict while holding the motion in reserve — but said the statute deliberately gives defendants flexibility to wait. The reason, the court explained, is that every day counts: Roper's nine-page motion alleged 326 days chargeable to the People, while the prosecution now claims only 54 of those days were theirs to own.
The case returns to Bronx Supreme Court, where a judge must now actually count the days.