CPL 30.30: NY Speedy Trial Clock, Certificate, and Dismissal

Under CPL 30.30, New York prosecutors have a fixed number of days to announce they are ready for trial, and if they miss that deadline, the court must dismiss the case. The window depends on the top charge: six months for a felony, 90 days for a misdemeanor carrying more than three months in jail, 60 days for a misdemeanor carrying three months or less, and 30 days for a violation.¹ Those are calendar deadlines, but not every calendar day counts. The real question in almost every 30.30 motion is which days are “chargeable” to the prosecution and which are excluded.

The statute sorts offenses by sentencing exposure, not by classification label. A Class A misdemeanor, which carries up to a year, falls in the 90-day bucket. A Class B misdemeanor, capped at three months, gets 60 days.

When the Speedy Trial Clock Starts

The clock begins when the criminal action commences, which under CPL 1.20(17) is the filing of the first accusatory instrument with the court.² That is typically a criminal complaint or an indictment. If more than one instrument is filed in the same case, the earliest one controls. A defendant who is not arrested until weeks after the original complaint was filed still gets the benefit of that earlier filing date.

What Time Counts Against the Prosecution

CPL 30.30(4) carves out several categories of delay that are subtracted from the total. This is where most motions are won or lost. The major exclusions:

Adjournments the defense requests or consents to.
Time spent litigating pretrial motions, from filing through the court’s ruling, including suppression hearings and motions to dismiss.
Periods when the defendant’s location is unknown and they are either trying to avoid prosecution or cannot be found despite reasonable effort.
Competency evaluations, appeals, and trials on separate charges.

Post-readiness delay gets closer scrutiny. If the prosecution announces ready and later becomes unready, the court must inquire on the record about why, and the time only comes off the clock if the prosecution supplies sufficient facts to justify the exclusion.¹

These exclusions explain why a case can sit on a court calendar for well over a year without a 30.30 violation. Every appearance has to be examined to figure out who caused the delay and under what category it falls.

Why “Ready” Now Means Filing a Certificate of Compliance

Since New York’s 2020 discovery reforms, the prosecution cannot stop the speedy trial clock simply by saying “ready” in open court. Under CPL 245.50, the prosecution is not deemed ready for 30.30 purposes until it files a valid certificate of compliance.³ That certificate is a sworn statement that the prosecution has turned over all required discovery after exercising due diligence and reasonable efforts.

The discovery obligations under CPL 245.20 cover witness statements, police reports, grand jury testimony, expert reports, electronic recordings, information on law enforcement witnesses, and contact information for civilian witnesses, among other categories.⁴ If the prosecution hasn’t produced that material, the clock keeps running no matter what they say on the record.

How Courts Evaluate the Certificate

CPL 30.30(5) requires the court, when readiness is announced, to inquire on the record about whether the prosecution is actually prepared. If the court finds otherwise, the readiness statement is treated as never made.¹

A certificate is invalid when the court determines the prosecution did not exercise due diligence. Courts look at the totality of the effort, not each missing item in isolation. Relevant factors include how much discovery was provided versus how much was outstanding, the complexity of the case, whether the prosecutor knew the missing material existed, whether the omission was corrected once discovered, and whether the delay actually prejudiced the defense.³

A supplemental certificate disclosing additional material doesn’t automatically kill the original one, as long as the first filing was made in good faith and the new items either didn’t exist earlier or were turned over promptly once discovered. The defense can challenge a certificate by motion, generally within 35 days of receiving it when it follows an indictment or information, and must first certify a good-faith attempt to resolve the issue directly with the prosecution.

If You Are in Custody, a Second Clock Runs

CPL 30.30(2) sets tighter deadlines when the defendant is held in jail. The remedy here is different: missing these windows means release on bail or on recognizance, not dismissal of the case.

Felony: 90 days in custody.
Misdemeanor carrying more than three months in jail: 30 days.
Misdemeanor carrying three months or less: 15 days.
Violation: 5 days.

These limits run alongside the subdivision 1 deadlines; they do not replace them.¹ For someone sitting in a cell on a felony, the 90-day release clock often matters more immediately than the six-month dismissal clock.

The Exceptional Circumstances Exception

Even after the prosecution’s time has technically expired, CPL 30.30(3)(b) lets the court deny the motion if the prosecution was previously ready and current unreadiness stems from an exceptional circumstance, such as a critical witness who has suddenly become unavailable. The prosecution has to show it exercised genuine effort to resolve the problem and that reasonable grounds exist to believe the evidence or witness will become available within a reasonable time.¹

This exception is narrow. A prosecutor who never subpoenaed the witness, or lost track of forensic evidence for months, will not meet the due diligence requirement. Courts look at what the prosecution actually did to prevent the problem, not just whether the problem was foreseeable.

Filing the Motion to Dismiss

A speedy trial motion is filed under CPL 170.30(1)(e) for misdemeanors and violations in local criminal court, or CPL 210.20(1)(g) for indicted cases in superior court.⁵⁶ It must be made before trial begins or a guilty plea is entered. Wait longer and the right is waived.

Building the Day-by-Day Record

The backbone of a 30.30 motion is a day-by-day accounting of the case. Defense counsel pulls court transcripts from every appearance to establish who requested each adjournment, how long it lasted, and which category of exclusion (if any) it falls into. The critical data points are the date the accusatory instrument was filed, the date of any certificate of compliance, and the dates and reasons for every adjournment in between.

Practitioners organize this into a “30.30 log” that sorts each period as chargeable or excludable. Court minutes that are ambiguous about who requested an adjournment tend to be charged to the prosecution, so these records get read closely.

Opposition and Hearing

The prosecution gets to submit written opposition arguing for exclusions. If disputed facts remain, the court may hold a hearing to sort out who caused specific delays. If the chargeable time exceeds the applicable deadline, the court must grant the motion.¹

What a 30.30 Dismissal Means

A successful motion terminates the criminal action. The statute uses mandatory language: the motion “must be granted” when the prosecution exceeds its time. CPL 30.30 does not contain an explicit provision allowing the prosecution to refile the same charges after a speedy trial dismissal, and New York’s sealing statutes generally require the record of the case to be sealed afterward.

A 30.30 dismissal does not depend on proving innocence or winning at trial. It holds the government to its obligation to move the case forward and imposes a real consequence when it does not.

1
New York State Senate. New York Criminal Procedure Law 30.30 – Speedy Trial; Time Limitations
2
New York State Senate. New York Criminal Procedure Law 1.20 – Definitions of Terms of General Use in This Chapter
3
New York State Senate. New York Criminal Procedure Law 245.50 – Certificates of Compliance; Readiness for Trial
4
New York State Senate. New York Criminal Procedure Law 245.20 – Automatic Discovery
5
New York State Senate. New York Criminal Procedure Law 170.30 – Motion to Dismiss Information, Simplified Information, Prosecutor’s Information or Misdemeanor Complaint
6
New York State Senate. New York Criminal Procedure Law 210.20 – Motion to Dismiss or Reduce Indictment