Speedy Trial in New York: How the Clock Runs

Does New York guarantee a trial within six months?

No, and this is the single most misunderstood rule in New York criminal procedure.

CPL 30.30 does not require the prosecution to try your case within any period. It requires them to announce that they are ready for trial within it. The Court of Appeals has said the statute “addresses only the problem of prosecutorial readiness, and is not a speedy trial statute in the constitutional sense.”

Once the People validly declare readiness, the clock stops. The actual trial can be a year later without violating the statute.

There is a separate constitutional speedy trial right under CPL 30.20, which has no fixed time limit and is decided by weighing the length of the delay, the reason for it, the seriousness of the charge, whether the defendant has been held in custody, and whether the defense has been impaired.

What are the time limits?

Charge	Limit
Any felony count	6 months
Class A misdemeanor	90 days
Class B misdemeanor	60 days
Violation	30 days
Vehicle and Traffic Law infractions	Covered, at the applicable level

Two precision points that matter:

• Six months means six calendar months, not 180 days. Depending on which months are involved that is typically a few days more, and the day the action begins is not counted.
• The clock starts when the first accusatory instrument is filed, not at arrest. On an appearance ticket it starts when you first appear in court in response to the ticket.

Traffic infractions being covered at all is relatively recent. Older decisions held they were outside the statute, and citing them today would be wrong.

Which cases are exempt?

Homicide. CPL 30.30 does not apply at all to murder and the manslaughter offenses. There is no readiness clock in those cases, and only the constitutional right applies.

Why has my case been on the calendar for a year?

Because the calendar and the legal deadline are two different things. Large blocks of time are excluded from the count, so a 90 day misdemeanor routinely sits for many months with far fewer than 90 chargeable days.

The main exclusions under CPL 30.30(4):

• Pre-trial motions and the time the court has them under consideration, for a reasonable period
• Adjournments the defense requests or consents to. This is the largest category in practice
• Periods when the defendant is absent or unavailable, or has failed to appear and a bench warrant has issued
• Time where the case is joined with a co-defendant whose own clock has not run
• Exceptional circumstances, which is deliberately narrow and requires the People to show supporting facts on the record
• Periods of an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal

Note that most of these are not automatic. Several require the court to make a finding, and the reasonableness qualifiers do real work.

The burden matters. The defense makes the initial showing that readiness was not declared in time. The People then have to identify and justify the excludable periods, and if the time is disputed the court must hold a hearing at which the People must prove the period is excludable.

What does “ready” actually mean?

Two things must both be true. There must be a communication of readiness on the court’s record, either in open court or by written notice filed and served, and the People must be actually ready at that moment.

A statement of readiness made when the People are not truly ready is illusory and does not stop the clock.

The statute adds gates of its own. The court must inquire on the record into whether the People are actually ready, and if it finds they are not, the statement is invalid. In local criminal court, which is where every Nassau misdemeanor sits, a statement of readiness is invalid unless the prosecutor certifies that the charges are facially sufficient.

On timing, the Court of Appeals held in People v. Licius, 2025 NY Slip Op 05873, decided 23 October 2025, that an electronic filing submitted before midnight on the due date is timely even though the clerk did not process it until the next morning.

How does discovery affect the speedy trial clock?

This is the mechanism behind most modern speedy trial dismissals, and it is what makes the rule bite.

Under CPL 245.50(3), the prosecution is not deemed ready for trial until it has filed a valid certificate of compliance with its discovery obligations. No valid certificate means no valid readiness, which means the clock never stopped.

In People v. Bay, 41 N.Y.3d 200 (2023), the Court of Appeals held that the People must exercise due diligence before filing the certificate, that a later supplemental certificate cannot cure a failure to be diligent at the outset, and that the People carry the burden of showing diligence. It also made clear there is no rule of strict liability and the statute does not expect a “perfect prosecutor.”

What changed in August 2025?

Substantially, and most published material has not caught up.

Amendments enacted in the 2025 budget took effect on 7 August 2025 and apply to cases pending on that date as well as later ones. They do not reach back to certificates filed earlier. The main changes:

Before	Now
Compliance reviewed item by item	Courts must look at the totality of the party’s efforts
Prejudice to the defense was not required	Prejudice is now a mandatory factor, though not determinative on its own
Defects raised “as soon as practicable”	35 days to challenge a certificate, with a required meet and confer
Readiness could be undone by discovery failures generally	The court may deem the People not ready only if it finds the certificate invalid

The amendments also added a floor: a court shall not invalidate a certificate where the party exercised due diligence and acted in good faith in making reasonable inquiries.

The 35 day deadline is a genuine trap for defendants. It replaced an open-ended standard, it requires an affirmation that the parties conferred in good faith and could reach no accommodation, and an extension has to be requested before the 35 days expire. There is a narrow escape where circumstances materially change, such as a belated disclosure.

One local wrinkle worth knowing: the 35 day clock is triggered only where the prosecution has filed an indictment or information before the certificate. On a misdemeanor complaint that has not yet been converted, it is not triggered.

Does late discovery automatically kill the case?

No, and that belief was already wrong before the 2025 amendments made it more wrong.

The Second Department, whose decisions control in Nassau County, has repeatedly held that a valid certificate and a readiness declaration are not rendered illusory by later disclosures made diligently and in good faith. In a January 2026 decision it upheld a certificate where grand jury minutes were disclosed the same day they were created, because the transcript did not exist earlier.

What actually decides these motions is whether the People were diligent before certifying, judged across the whole of their efforts.

When does the motion have to be made?

Before trial begins or before a guilty plea is entered, in writing.

The Court of Appeals addressed the outer limit in People v. Roper, 2026 NY Slip Op 02365, decided 21 April 2026: a misdemeanor speedy trial motion is timely if made in writing before trial commences, including on the morning trial was set to begin, and the general notice requirements cannot shorten that.

Do not confuse that with the 35 day discovery deadline. They are different rules with different clocks, and conflating them is a real and costly error.

What happens if the motion succeeds?

The statute says the motion must be granted. It is not discretionary once the chargeable time exceeds the limit.

For an indictment, dismissal on speedy trial grounds is with prejudice. The statute lists the grounds on which a court may authorize the People to re-present a case to a grand jury, and speedy trial is deliberately not among them, so the dismissal bars further prosecution of those charges in that county.

A speedy trial claim also survives a guilty plea for appellate purposes, which is unusual. An order denying the motion is reviewable on appeal even where the conviction was entered on a plea.

Where are these motions heard in Nassau County?

Both courts, depending on the charge.

• Misdemeanors, violations and traffic matters stay in Nassau County District Court, 99 Main Street in Hempstead, so the 90, 60 and 30 day clocks are litigated there. The facial sufficiency certification requirement applies here and not in County Court.
• Felonies are arraigned in District Court and move to Nassau County Court, 262 Old Country Road in Mineola after indictment. The six month clock runs from the filing of the felony complaint in Hempstead, and moving to Mineola does not reset anything.

Misdemeanor appeals go to the Appellate Term for the Ninth and Tenth Judicial Districts; felony appeals go to the Appellate Division, Second Department.

Related: what happens at an arraignment, desk appearance tickets, and criminal defense in Nassau County.