PEOPLE v. GARCIA

The court's failure to inform defendant at his plea allocution that he would be subject to a period of postrelease supervision requires reversal of the conviction ( People v Catu, 4 NY3d 242). In pleading guilty, defendant was entitled to rely on the court's sentence promise, which, as applicable here, was a prison term of 3½ years with no mention of anything else. Accordingly, the fact that the prosecutor mentioned postrelease supervision earlier in the plea proceeding does not warrant a different result. A court's failure to warn a defendant prior to pleading guilty of the sentencing consequences of the plea is not subject to harmless error analysis ( People v Hill, 9 NY3d 189, 192, cert denied 553 US ", 128 S Ct 2430; see also People v Van Deusen, 7 NY3d 744, 745-746). Similarly, there is no reason to depart from the rule that a defendant may raise a Catu issue for the first time on appeal ( see People v Louree, 8 NY3d 541). We have considered and rejected the People's remaining arguments.