People v Ephram

People v Ephram 2008 NY Slip Op 00360 [47 AD3d 497] January 22, 2008 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Terry Ephram, Appellant.

—[*1] Steven Banks, The Legal Aid Society, New York City (Harold V. Ferguson, Jr. of counsel), for appellant.

Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (Justin J. Braun of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Darcel D. Clark, J., at plea; Seth L. Marvin, J., at sentence), rendered April 28, 2006, convicting defendant, of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 4½ to 9 years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant made a valid waiver of his right to appeal, which forecloses review of his claim that, even after he undisputedly violated his plea agreement by misconduct at, or absconding from, two drug programs, the court should have exercised its discretion to give him a chance to enter a third program or directed a more thorough evaluation of his eligibility for such a program (see People v Wilson, 11 AD3d 206 [2004], lv denied 3 NY3d 743 [2004]). In any event, the court properly exercised its discretion when it imposed sentence pursuant to the plea agreement, without ordering a full mental health evaluation in order to determine whether defendant merited placement in a drug program more suited to his alleged psychiatric condition, since there is nothing in the record to support defendant's assertion that he had any psychiatric background warranting such an evaluation. Concur—Lippman, P.J., Saxe, Nardelli, Williams and Moskowitz, JJ.