People v. Velez

OPINION OF THE COURT

Memorandum.

The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.

Defendant was indicted in May 2007, for a burglary that occurred in October 2003. He sought dismissal of the indictment based on the 43-month pre-accusatory delay. The People attributed this delay to two circumstances. First, there was a delay of some 14 months owing to the fact that the police department lacked a latent fingerprint examiner to match the prints from the crime scene. Second, once the fingerprints were matched and defendant was identified as a suspect, the District Attorney’s office learned…