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N.Y. CPL Law § 170.20

This is the official text of N.Y. CPL Law § 170.20, part of New York’s CPL Law — part of the compiled statutory law of New York, published by the state as "CPL Law." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Divestiture of jurisdiction by indictment; removal of case to superior court at district attorney's instance

Official statutory text

§ 170.20 Divestiture of jurisdiction by indictment; removal of case to\n superior court at district attorney's instance.\n 1. If at any time before entry of a plea of guilty to or commencement\nof a trial of a local criminal court accusatory instrument containing a\ncharge of misdemeanor, an indictment charging the defendant with such\nmisdemeanor is filed in a superior court, the local criminal court is\nthereby divested of jurisdiction of such misdemeanor charge and all\nproceedings therein with respect thereto are terminated.\n 2. At any time before entry of a plea of guilty to or commencement of\na trial of an accusatory instrument specified in subdivision one, the\ndistrict attorney may apply for an adjournment of the proceedings in the\nlocal criminal court upon the ground that he intends to present the\nmisdemeanor charge in question to a grand jury with a view to\nprosecuting it by indictment in a superior court. In such case, the\nlocal criminal court must adjourn the proceedings to a date which\naffords the district attorney reasonable opportunity to pursue such\naction, and may subsequently grant such further adjournments for that\npurpose as are reasonable under the circumstances. Following the\ngranting of such adjournment or adjournments, the proceedings must be as\nfollows:\n (a) If such charge is presented to a grand jury within the designated\nperiod and either an indictment or a dismissal of such charge results,\nthe local criminal court is thereby divested of jurisdiction of such\ncharge, and all proceedings in the local criminal court with respect\nthereto are terminated.\n (b) If the misdemeanor charge is not presented to a grand jury within\nthe designated period, the proceedings in the local criminal court must\ncontinue.\n

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.