Matter of Tafari v. Stanford

Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Koweek, J.), entered February 3, 2015 in Columbia County, which, in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, denied petitioner’s motion to enforce a prior order. Petitioner commenced this CPLR article 78 proceeding challenging a September 2013 decision of the Board of Parole denying his request for parole release. In June 2014, Supreme Court issued an order remanding the case to the Board to conduct a de novo parole hearing. The hearing was conducted in September 2014 after which the Board again denied petitioner’s request for parole release. Petitioner was not satisfied with the Board’s decision or the manner in which the de novo hearing was conducted and made a pro se motion “to enforce” the June 2014 order by having the court direct that another de novo parole hearing be conducted. Supreme Court denied the motion and petitioner now appeals. Preliminarily, we note that petitioner should have pursued his challenge to the Board’s September 2014 decision via a separate CPLR article 78 proceeding instead of a motion to enforce Supreme Court’s prior order. Nevertheless, his challenge is now moot given his reappearance before the Board in May 2015. Accordingly, the appeal must be dismissed (see Matter of Franko v Department of Corn & Community Supervision, 126 AD3d 1193, 1193 [2015]; Matter of McRoy v New York State Bd. of Parole, 121 AD3d 1159, 1160 [2014]). Lahtinen, J.P., Garry, Devine and Clark, JJ., concur. Ordered that the appeal is dismissed, as moot, without costs.