Requires a sentence and commitment or certificate of conviction to be delivered to persons in charge of the correctional facility or OCFS facility to which a defendant is committed

Sections 2 and 4 of the bill would add a new Criminal Procedure Law . 380.65 and amend Correction Law §601(a) to clarify that the sentence and commitment or certificate of conviction, as well as any order of protection, must accompany an offender to a state or local correctional institution or to an OCFS facility when he or she commences service of a sentence of imprisonment.

Section 3 of the bill would make a technical amendment to Criminal Procedure Law § 380.70 to clarify that it is only the sentencing minutes, and not the certificate of conviction or order of protection, that must be delivered to the institution where the defendant is confined within 30 days after the imposition of sentence.

Section 5 of the bill sets forth the effective date:

Existing law

Criminal Procedure Law § 380.60 now provides that in all cases other than when a sentence of death is pronounced, a certificate of conviction showing the sentence pronounced by the court, or a certified copy thereof, constitutes the authority for execution of sentence and serves as the order of commitment. Criminal Procedure Law § 380.70 requires a court to deliver sentencing minutes to a correctional facility 30 days after imposing a sentence of imprisonment. It also requites a certificate of conviction and order of protection to be delivered to the facility within 30 days from the date sentence was imposed. However, Correction Law § 601 (a) requires that whenever an inmate is delivered to a state facility, the transporting officer must also deliver a certified copy of the sentence, a certificate of conviction and a copy of any order or temporary order of protection.

Legislative history

2009-10: S.5517.A.7951 - Referred to Senate Codes/Assembly Codes

Statement in support

This bill would correct and clarify inconsistent and ambiguous provisions in the Criminal Procedure Law and the Correction Law pertaining to the timing of the sentencing court's obligation to provide state and local correctional facilities and OCFS facilities

with commitment documents, orders of protection and sentencing minutes. It also would make technical corrections to the statutes to reflect the proper name of the commitment documents that are used today.

First, Criminal Procedure Law § 380.60 identifies a "certificate of conviction" as the legal document that confers the authority for the execution of sentence and serves as the order of commitment. In actuality, the technical title of the commitment document is a "sentence and commitment." As such, it is appropriate that this section of law, as well as a comparable provision in Correction Law § 601(a), be amended to include the title of the document that is routinely used.

Second, Criminal Procedure Law § 380.70 provides that in any case where a person receives either a determinate or indeterminate sentence of imprisonment, the sentencing minutes must be transcribed and separately sent to the institution to which the defendant has been delivered within 30 days of the pronouncement of sentence.

As part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1995, the Legislature determined that the commitment document that accompanies an offender to his or her place of incarceration should contain greater specificity with regard to the crime of commitment. Specifically, it was determined that the commitment should also indicate, to the extent applicable, the subdivision, paragraph and subparagraph of the penal law or other statute under which the defendant was convicted. However, when the Legislature adopted this new requirement in 1995, the provision was mistakenly inserted into section 380.70, the same section of law that deals with sentencing minutes. This creates the misimpression that a commitment, like the sentencing minutes, may be separately delivered to the facility, even though Correction Law 601(a) and Criminal Procedure Law § 380.60 make it clear that the commitment document must accompany the defendant when he or she is delivered to the institution to commence serving his or her sentence of imprisonment. This error was continued when the law was subsequently expanded to require orders of protection to be delivered to the institution with a defendant.

The new section of law that explicitly describes the documents that must accompany a defendant when he or she is delivered to an institution to commence serving a sentence of imprisonment will clarify the confusion that is caused by the existing, inconsistent statutory language. This will help to ensure that state and local correctional facilities have the necessary documentation when receiving offenders into their custody, including documents providing such basic information as the term of the inmate's sentence and whether multiple sentences run consecutively or concurrently.

At the same time, maintaining a separate section of law requiring that courts subsequently send the sentencing minutes to the facility should help to clarify the courts' continuing obligations after a defendant has been sentenced. These minutes assist DOCS and the Division of Parole with programming and release decisions. They provide additional background about the crime, any recommendations by

the judge and any statements by victims. By separating these provisions, it will clarify that the sentence and commitment documents are sent to the facility with the inmate, and that the sentence minutes must be sent later, helping to ensure that these critically important documents will become part of an inmate's correctional file.

Effective date

This bill would take effect on September 1, 2011, with provisions.