People v Harold Sherwood

People v Sherwood 2006 NY Slip Op 00252 [25 AD3d 444] January 17, 2006 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, March 22, 2006

The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Harold Sherwood, Appellant.

—[*1]

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Brenda Soloff, J., at plea; Lewis Bart Stone, J., at sentence), rendered August 11, 2004, convicting defendant of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the fifth degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 2 to 4 years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant is not entitled, pursuant to the amelioration doctrine of People v Behlog (74 NY2d 237 [1989]), to the benefit of the reduced penalty contained in the Drug Law Reform Act (L 2004, ch 738), because the Legislature has expressly stated that the provision upon which defendant relies applies only to crimes committed after its effective date (People v Nelson, 21 AD3d 861 [2005]). In any event, the amelioration doctrine does not apply where, as here, a defendant was sentenced before the new law's effective date (People v Walker, 81 NY2d 661, 666-667 [1993]). Concur—Tom, J.P., Mazzarelli, Sullivan, Nardelli and McGuire, JJ.