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People ex Rel. Gaito v. Couture

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Third Department
Feb 24, 2000
269 A.D.2d 709 (N.Y. App. Div. 2000)

Opinion

February 24, 2000

Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Demarest, J.), entered May 10, 1999 in St. Lawrence County, which dismissed petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus, in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 70, after a hearing.

Joseph Gaito, Gouverneur, appellant in person.

Eliot Spitzer, Attorney-General (Gina M. Ciccone of counsel), Albany, for respondents.

Before: MERCURE, J.P., CREW III, SPAIN, GRAFFEO and MUGGLIN, JJ.


MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Petitioner was sentenced to serve an indeterminate term of imprisonment of 5 to 15 years for various felony convictions and was subsequently released to parole supervision. Petitioner was thereafter charged with parole violations and, following a February 1998 final parole revocation hearing, his parole was revoked. Although petitioner requested an administrative appeal in April 1998, in the interim he brought this application in January 1999 seeking a writ of habeas corpus claiming that the parole regulations relied upon in assessing the penalty at his parole revocation hearing were unconstitutional ex post facto laws. Petitioner's application was dismissed by Supreme Court and we affirm.

It is well settled that "[h]abeas corpus relief is inappropriate in cases where the claimed errors could have been remedied by means of an administrative appeal" (People ex rel. Vazquez v. Travis, 236 A.D.2d 745, 746, appeal dismissed 91 N.Y.2d 847;see, People ex rel. Lee v. La Paglia, 249 A.D.2d 601, 602, lv denied 92 N.Y.2d 807). Notably, previous challenges to 9 NYCRR 8005.20 (c) on ex post facto grounds have been rejected (see,People ex rel. Tyler v. Travis, 269 A.D.2d 636 [Feb. 3, 2000];People ex rel. Kelly v. New York State Div. of Parole, 264 A.D.2d 361, 694 N.Y.S.2d 378; People ex rel. Johnson v. Russi, 258 A.D.2d 346,appeal dismissed, lv denied 93 N.Y.2d 945) and, in any event, we are unpersuaded that petitioner has raised "the type of constitutional claims that would justify departing from the general rule requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies" (People ex rel. Gibbs v. New York Bd. of Parole, 251 A.D.2d 718, 718, lv denied 92 N.Y.2d 814). Thus, before seeking judicial redress, petitioner was required to "pursue his administrative appeal to conclusion" (People ex rel. Carroll v. Russi, 232 A.D.2d 692, 692).

Petitioner perfected his administrative appeal in February 1999 and respondents state in their brief that petitioner's penalty has since been reviewed and modified.

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed, without costs.


Summaries of

People ex Rel. Gaito v. Couture

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Third Department
Feb 24, 2000
269 A.D.2d 709 (N.Y. App. Div. 2000)
Case details for

People ex Rel. Gaito v. Couture

Case Details

Full title:THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK ex rel. JOSEPH GAITO, Appellant, v…

Court:Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Third Department

Date published: Feb 24, 2000

Citations

269 A.D.2d 709 (N.Y. App. Div. 2000)
704 N.Y.S.2d 894

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