that afternoon at me it please the court i am kelly creggan the office of the state appellate defender and they have the defendant keenan allen this is a direct appeal following a guilty plea  murder case there are two issues in this case one there is an improper rule six of were due certificate and two the trial court failed to conduct an inquiry into whether allen had conflict free representation after defense counsel  i counsel is rule six upward the certificate was too vague to determine whether he complied fully with the rule to sing out was decided before counsel filed this motion or gives me a certificate and for the trial court should have known that a potential conflict of interest occurred it should have conducted an inquiry after defense counsel filed a motion to reconsider sentence following into goshi and guilty plea here there was a cap meaning negotiated guilty plea and the challenge or the sentence could not be challenged however defense counsel still filed what he called a motion to reduce sentence or to withdraw plea of guilty arguing that the sentence was excessive because the court did not weigh all factors in mitigation and that the plea was not conducted in compliance with rule or a chill at the hearing of the motion counsel said quote following the sentencing hearing we did have transcriptions prepared and i have reviewed the same and filed a motion in consideration there of and we do believe that it is appropriate to grant in both fashions actually mr allen will be and his oral representations at the hearing indicate that counsel and as a result allen were unaware that the sentence could that be reconsidered the trial judge should have recognized a potential conflict of it was like a combo it was a motion to reconsider sentence or an ocean to withdraw but in the motion it self you led with this is excessive and gave vague reasons about how the trial court in that way the aggravation and mitigation question well no i mean in order to i mean if you want to and you have to file a motion to was to file a motion to vacate allen's allen's plea and only if that is successful can the sentence be attacked and under people versus richards the trial court is not even supposed to have the authority mentioned the sentence period he should have only asked that the plea deal with drawn because that's the only step that he could take and so by arguing from both you said that negates the the  the guilty argument by arguing for both it's clearly i mean i think it's clear that counsel doesn't know that the sentence can be attacked with this with this cap seventy is the max hundred sixteen so my point is that the motion to the only motion available was the motion to withdraw the guilty plea and anything else shows that counsel doesn't  shows even understand it then or when he was before they were in the exactly because really seventy years with a cap there's no benefit to doing that then there is that there would be to say doing a blind plea because at least in the blind plea the sentence can be attacked excessive whereas the seventy year cap which is essentially a life sentence cannot be attacked and trial counsel factors motion it was very big you would see it in any other case of any other defend it if all it said was this was an excessive sentence because the judge did not weigh the mitigation there was no allegation that there was an improper effect or used or he didn't in the murray what that would have been so richard's does hold in this case and furthermore if is is likely counsel misinformed allen or fail morrow it would have been a conflict of interest in this case for counsel to argue that alan's plead be withdrawn because he himself failed to tell him that the it cannot be argued as excessive that he cannot challenge the sent did not know that role though certainly that affected allen did not know their role either so it would have been nearly impossible for him to have caught that and brought that to the judge's attention in a criminal type situation i'm for for anyone to enter into a knowing and voluntary play he should know everything that he is getting into including that he cannot appeal a sentence that he cannot challenge federal rules of criminal procedure mandate that judges tell them of their appeal rights or that their challenge that their sentence cannot and challenge which is not required i mean the circuit courts but that would be something that should have a duty to inform his client and it is arguably infective that he did not there seems to not have done that was your hearing on that whether or not he didn't know so i mean record that defendant is not alleging that counsel never told them that but that's why i think it the judge should have held an inquiry to determine their head and that's why if this goes back to the trial court we would ask that held to determine whether defense counsel told his client this or not and how do you propose we a different public defender i think it's an inquiry would have to be made about whether defendant plea was involuntary the first time around if he wasn't told that he couldn't appeal the sentence  back and he's before the judge and he has counsel it seems like this could be something that could be gotten to the bottom of a the consultant to with the defendant to determine his contentions of error in both the sentence or the entry the guilty plea not in use that language but the people submit the language they use is is enough to comply with certified that you didn't read the transcript so based on the fact that it was ordered a month before the hearing and the council certified that you read them the people would submit that that would be enough evidence to support the people fishing that that council  normally have folded to conduct the type of inquiry that as you're owners mentioned during counsel's argument that would be conducted in a in a post conviction type of forum on this is precisely the and and i think that we've just as carter alluded to that this would just be speculation would be jumping a couple of steps to conclude based on some observations in the record that counsel was an effective and i think that i don't think going out of the ordinary course of procedures to if this were to be remanded just say so that the trial judge needs to discuss with counsel what he was thinking i just i don't see any support for that and neither in the record factually or in prior precedent case law or statues so i don't think i think that would be a pretty radical remedy for something that i don't believe is concrete i don't  to question councils performance based on the deal that was entered in this case yes if if the full sentence is about is completed and that the funding will be in ninety seven when he's released but i think the record is pretty clear that council or i'm sorry the friend that knew exactly what kind of deal he was entering into there was there was a lot of back and forth between the trial judge and the defendant how worse  be based on the cap couldn't be worse but but again your honor i make as i argued in my brief that there is no requirement that a defendant get an objective the great deal he doesn't it doesn't have to be there could be a myriad reasons of why this defendant entered into this deal and i don't think it's proper to speculate why he did it again back to his word speculation it seems like we're doing that an awful lot of that here in this issue and i think that there could be a perfectly valid reason why this defendant didn't want to go to trial and maybe he was just rolling as the dice and hoping you're putting a cap on it maybe it would be less is that is what ultimately last turned out that wasn't the case but briefly to respond to some of the things that this the state said as far as stopping their proceedings i don't think that it's not such a bad thing to stop the proceedings to determine whether the pleas what that whether defend actually voluntary and whether he did knowingly i enter into this plea and as far as putting off until post conviction detention i mean we have we have cranial hearings that arguably could be something that could be put off in the post conviction but it is better to get to the bottom of potentially in effect this is the council and stop it at the source that is to put it off later for post conviction he could allege that that and if we don't remained with directions i'm guessing you could pick up the phone and get the bill and there's nothing