DWI charge dismissed in Webster

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A Webster town justice has dismissed several charges, including driving while intoxicated, because the prosecutor failed to provide the defense with required documents within the required timeframe.

The defendant, Brady P. Woods, was charged in November 2018 with DWI, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, and refusal to take the roadside breath test, according to the July 16 decision issued by Webster Town Justice Thomas J. DiSalvo.

Woods was arraigned on Nov. 19, 2018, the same day his lawyer, Thomas A. Corletta, faxed the court to request supporting depositions for each of the charges.

DiSalvo issued an order on Nov. 27, 2018, for the arresting officer to provide the supporting depositions. At a court appearance on Dec. 5, 2018, Corletta again asked for the supporting depositions, which he had not received.

On Dec. 28, 2018, new traffic informations and supporting depositions were filed with the court by the Webster Police Department. The informations were dated Nov. 28, 2018, with supporting depositions dated Nov. 18, 2018.

The court clerk mailed those documents to the prosecutor and Corletta the day they were received — Dec. 28, 2018 — which was 39 days after the initial request for the supporting depositions.

Under New York State Criminal Procedure Law Section 100.25, the supporting deposition must be provided to the defendant within 30 days.

On March 20, the prosecutor filed new accusatory instruments — “prosecutor’s informations” — for each of the charges, along with supporting depositions, to supersede the other filings.

On May 24, DiSalvo dismissed the first two sets of charges because the supporting depositions were not provided to the defendant within 30 days.

DiSalvo also granted Corletta’s motion to dismiss the prosecutor’s informations because, under state Criminal Procedure Law, they cannot supersede previously filed uniform traffic informations.

“The court believes that the accusatory instruments filed by the district attorney are prosecutor’s informations … Prosecutor’s informations cannot be used to supersede uniform traffic informations. Once filed for that purpose they are a nullity,” DiSalvo wrote.

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