Waiver of Appeal Must Make Clear that Right to Appeal Isn't Forfeited by Guilty Plea

People v Vega 2008 NY Slip Op 02250 (3/14/2008)

The Fourth Department holds that a single inquiry to a defendant which fails to make clear that the loss of the right to appeal is not an automatic consequence of a guilty plea is insufficient to demonstrate a knowing and intelligent waiver of appeal:

we agree with defendant that his waiver of the right to appeal is invalid (see generally People v Lopez, 6 NY3d 248, 256). Supreme Court did not ask defendant during the plea colloquy whether he agreed to waive his right to appeal, and the prosecutor's single inquiry of defendant whether he understood that he was waiving his right to appeal is insufficient to "establish that [he] understood that the right to appeal is separate and distinct from those rights automatically forfeited upon a plea of guilty" (id.; see People v Phillips, 28 AD3d 939, lv denied 7 NY3d 761; People v Brown, 296 AD2d 860, lv denied 98 NY2d 767).