By Michele Evans / NYweeklyRecord.com / Date: 10/30/2026
Category: Criminal Courts / Justice Reform / Court Administration
NEW YORK CITY, NY – New York’s highest court has opened the door for defendants to challenge statutory speedy-trial rulings on appeal even when they pleaded guilty before a key reform took effect.
The Court of Appeals ruled Thursday in People v. Nantan that Criminal Procedure Law 30.30(6) applies to appeals that were still pending when the provision became effective on January 1, 2020. The 4-3 decision reversed a lower appellate ruling and sent Tammy Nantan’s case back for consideration of her speedy-trial claim.
The ruling does not erase Nantan’s conviction. It requires the Appellate Term to decide the claim that it previously refused to reach.
Nantan was arrested in 2016 and charged with misdemeanor assault and lesser offenses. Prosecutors had 90 days of chargeable time to declare readiness for trial. According to the Court of Appeals, the case continued for more than a year while prosecutors repeatedly said a key witness was unavailable because of military leave.
Nantan moved to dismiss on speedy-trial grounds. Criminal Court denied the motion, and she later pleaded guilty in February 2018 to second-degree harassment, a violation rather than a crime. She received a one-year conditional discharge and two orders of protection.
At the time, a guilty plea generally forfeited appellate review of a statutory speedy-trial claim. The Legislature changed that rule through reforms commonly associated with Kalief’s Law. CPL 30.30(6) now says an order denying a speedy-trial motion remains reviewable on appeal despite a guilty plea.
The dispute was whether that protection reached Nantan’s already-pending appeal. The Appellate Term said no because her conviction predated the amendment. The Court of Appeals majority disagreed.
Judge Jenny Rivera wrote that the statute’s command that such claims “shall be reviewable upon an appeal” contains no exception for pending cases. The majority said the law was designed to place defendants who pleaded guilty on the same footing as those who went to trial when challenging a speedy-trial ruling.
Three judges dissented. Judge Anthony Cannataro argued that applying the amendment to a conviction entered before its effective date improperly gave the law retroactive effect and disturbed settled expectations.
The split matters beyond one misdemeanor case. Guilty pleas resolve most criminal prosecutions. If a plea automatically blocked review of an allegedly erroneous speedy-trial ruling in a pending appeal, the reform would bypass defendants whose cases were already moving through the courts when the law changed.
The decision also draws a careful procedural line. Nantan has won the right to appellate review, not a final ruling that prosecutors exceeded the lawful readiness period. The Appellate Term must now examine the merits, including which delays are chargeable to the prosecution.
For New Yorkers facing criminal charges, the ruling makes the Legislature’s promise concrete: a guilty plea does not automatically erase a preserved statutory speedy-trial challenge from an appeal.
Sources
New York State Law Reporting Bureau: People v. Nantan
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