*1 Defendant appeals from the order of the Supreme Court, Bronx County (Ralph Fabrizio, J.), entered on or about May 31, 2016, insofar as it denied defendant a new initial hearing pursuant to CPL 330.20 in connection with his plea of not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect.*2
PETER TOM, J.P.In this appeal, we must consider whether defendant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel when, following his plea of not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect to robbery in the first degree, his counsel conceded that defendant had a dangerous mental disorder, and effectively waived defendant’s right to an initial hearing concerning his civil confinement pursuant to Criminal Procedure Law 330.20(6).Defendant Daryl T., now nearly 50 years old, has a history of mental illness that began at age 10 and a history of committing larceny during psychiatric episodes that occurred when his medication had worn off. He has been diagnosed repeatedly with bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder, a combination of schizophrenia and mood disorders, and has been hospitalized repeatedly as a danger to himself and others, due to his auditory hallucinations and voices telling him to kill himself and others. He has also been treated with several different antipsychotics and mood stabilizers.When defendant was between 14 and 16 years old, he stabbed a man with intent to kill, and then stabbed himself. In 1994, he tried to hurt himself by taking his friend’s gun and was confined at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center for observation from October 1994 to March 1995; he told medical personnel that he had heard voices in his head since age six, that the voices told him to kill, and that he had previously stabbed himself because of those voices.Defendant was confined in institutions for periods of a few days to a week at a time in March 2003, January 2005, January 2006, May-June 2010, October 2010, May 2011, June 2011, July-August 2011, and January 2012. During those confinements, he said that he heard voices and that he wanted to kill himself and others, and throughout his medical history, he has tested positive for alcohol and cocaine on numerous occasions.In August 2012, defendant tried to jump off the George Washington Bridge. Some days before that, five security officers had escorted him out of Mount Sinai Hospital after he threw monitor cords at the staff and threatened to hurt staff outside of the hospital. On March 19, 2013, while hospitalized at Bellevue, defendant said he heard voices in his head that told him he was worthless and should kill himself. One week after his release from Bellevue, he committed the offense to which he pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
