2016 UT App 95

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

STATE OF UTAH,

Appellee,

v.

JESSE A. SAENZ,

Appellant.

Memorandum Decision

No. 20141148-CA

Filed May 12, 2016

Eighth District Court, Vernal Department

The Honorable Clark A. McClellan

No. 121800390

Colleen K. Coebergh, Attorney for Appellant

Sean D. Reyes and Lindsey Wheeler, Attorneys

for Appellee

SENIOR JUDGE PAMELA T. GREENWOOD authored this

Memorandum Decision, in which JUDGES STEPHEN L. ROTH and 

MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN concurred.

1

GREENWOOD, Senior Judge:

¶1 Jesse Saenz appeals his sentence, arguing that the trial 

court abused its discretion when it denied his motion to 

withdraw his guilty plea, which he filed after imposition of 

sentence. We affirm.

¶2 Saenz followed H.M. after they both got off a bus; broke 

her cell phone as she was dialing 911; and brutally beat, raped, 

 

1. Senior Judge Pamela T. Greenwood sat by special assignment 

as authorized by law. See generally Utah R. Jud. Admin. 11-

201(6).
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20141148-CA 2 2016 UT App 95

and sodomized her after dragging her by the hair across the 

street behind some bushes. Bystanders heard H.M. screaming—

despite Saenz’s warning that he would kill her if she screamed—

and called the police. Saenz stopped his attack only when he saw 

officers and then attempted to flee the scene. Saenz was 

apprehended and charged with aggravated sexual assault, object 

rape, forcible sodomy, forcible sexual abuse with injury, and 

aggravated kidnapping, along with several lesser charges. The 

State agreed to drop all but one of the charges and to 

recommend a 15-year-to-life prison sentence in exchange for 

Saenz pleading guilty to one count of aggravated sexual assault. 

At the plea hearing, Saenz pleaded guilty as agreed, and the 

State recommended a sentence of 15-years-to-life.

¶3 At sentencing, Saenz confirmed his guilty plea and the 

State recommended the agreed upon 15-years-to-life sentence. 

But the prosecutor drew the district court’s attention to Saenz’s 

two prior juvenile court adjudications for sexual assault and to 

section 76-3-407 of the Utah Code, which authorizes a district 

court to enhance penalties for repeat sex offenders. See Utah 

Code Ann. § 76-3-407(2) (LexisNexis 2012). The prosecutor urged 

‚the *court+ . . . to consider that [section] when examining this 

case.‛ Saenz’s victim, H.M., also addressed the court. She stated 

that she had ‚experienced the most cruel, vicious evil that there 

is in the world‛ and asked the court to ‚give *Saenz+ the 

maximum.‛ The district court then asked Saenz if there was 

‚any reason‛ why it ‚shouldn’t pronounce sentence at this 

time.‛ His counsel responded, ‚There’s not, your Honor.‛ The 

court noted that the minimum punishment for aggravated 

sexual assault is 15-years-to-life but determined that under 

section 76-3-407 it could impose an additional ten years because 

of the two juvenile court adjudications. Accordingly, it sentenced 

Saenz to 25-years-to-life.

¶4 One week after sentencing, Saenz petitioned the district 

court to correct his sentence and to allow him to withdraw his 
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20141148-CA 3 2016 UT App 95

guilty plea. He argued that a juvenile court adjudication is not a 

‚conviction‛ for purposes of sentencing enhancements under 

section 76-3-407 of the Utah Code, and that the State breached 

the plea agreement when it argued that the district court should 

consider sentencing enhancements for his prior juvenile 

adjudications. The State agreed that Saenz’s prior juvenile 

adjudications could not support enhancement under section 76-

3-407, but maintained that it did not breach its agreement in 

bringing section 76-3-407 to the district court’s attention. At a 

subsequent hearing, the district court determined that Saenz’s 

sentence was improperly enhanced and amended it to reflect the 

15-years-to-life sentence that Saenz had bargained for and that

the State had agreed to recommend. It denied Saenz’s request to 

withdraw his guilty plea because, even if the prosecutor had 

breached the plea agreement, the court ‚did not believe 

[that] . . . the outcome would be any different‛ and because 

‚what ultimately happen*ed+ here is exactly what would have 

happened anyway.‛

¶5 On appeal, Saenz asks this court to vacate the district 

court’s order denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea, 

arguing that the denial was an abuse of discretion because the 

State breached its plea agreement. In response, the State argues

that the district court ‚lacked jurisdiction to allow *Saenz+ to 

withdraw his guilty plea‛ because ‚he moved to withdraw his 

plea after sentence was announced.‛ We agree with the State.

¶6 A motion to withdraw a guilty plea is untimely if made 

after sentence is announced; this is a jurisdictional bar. Utah 

Code Ann. § 77-13-6(2)(b) (LexisNexis 2012) (‚A request to 

withdraw a plea of guilty or no contest . . . shall be made by 

motion before sentence is announced.‛); State v. Ott, 2010 UT 1,

¶ 18, 247 P.3d 344 (‚[F]ailure to withdraw a guilty plea within 

the time frame dictated by section 77-13-6 deprives the trial court 

and appellate courts of jurisdiction to review the validity of the 

plea.‛ (alteration in original)); State v. Taufui, 2015 UT App 118,
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20141148-CA 4 2016 UT App 95

¶ 8, 350 P.3d 631 (‚‘*S+ection 77-13-6(2)(b) is indeed 

jurisdictional.’‛ (citation omitted)). And ‚failure to comply with 

[section 77-13-6’s+ requirements extinguishes a defendant’s right 

to challenge the validity of the guilty plea on appeal.‛ Grimmett 

v. State, 2007 UT 11, ¶ 8, 152 P.3d 306 (citation and internal 

quotation marks omitted); see State v. Mardoniz-Rosado, 2014 UT 

App 128, ¶¶ 5–6, 328 P.3d 864. As a consequence, a 

postsentencing challenge to a guilty plea must be brought under 

Utah’s Post-Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA). Taufui, 2015 UT 

App 118, ¶ 8 (‚If a motion to withdraw a plea is not made before 

sentencing, [a]ny challenge to a guilty plea . . . shall be pursued 

under . . . [the] Post-Conviction Remedies Act.‛ (alterations and 

omissions in original) (citations and internal quotation marks 

omitted)); see also State v. Nicholls, 2006 UT 76, ¶¶ 6–7, 148 P.3d 

990. Here, because Saenz made his motion to withdraw his plea 

after sentencing, the district court did not have jurisdiction to 

consider it.

¶7 Furthermore, ‚when a plea agreement is breached by the 

prosecutor, the proper remedy is either specific performance of 

the plea agreement or withdrawal of the guilty plea[,] both at the 

discretion of the trial judge.‛ State v. Smit, 2004 UT App 222, 

¶ 17, 95 P.3d 1203. The district court in effect granted Saenz the 

only alternative remedy available to him—specific 

performance—by resentencing him without the prior-conviction 

enhancements to the 15-years-to-life he had bargained for. Thus,

the district court did not abuse its discretion when it imposed on

Saenz the sentence he had agreed to.

¶8 Despite the untimeliness of Saenz’s motion to withdraw 

his plea, however, the district court had the authority to 

‚correct an illegal sentence . . . at any time.‛ Utah R. Crim. P. 

22(e). Saenz’s enhanced sentence was illegal because the 

enhancement statute did not apply to his juvenile court 

adjudications. See Utah Code Ann. § 78A-6-116(2) (LexisNexis 

2012) (‚An adjudication . . . is not considered a conviction of a 
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20141148-CA 5 2016 UT App 95

crime . . . .‛); see also State v. Yazzie, 2009 UT 14, ¶ 13, 203 P.3d 984

(‚[An illegal sentence is] . . . a sentence which the judgment of 

conviction did not authorize.‛ (alteration in original) (citation

and internal quotation marks omitted)). The district court did—

as it ought to have done—correct the illegal sentence it had 

erroneously imposed when it amended Saenz’s sentence from 

25-years-to-life to 15-years-to-life.

¶9 The district court did not have jurisdiction to consider 

Saenz’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea; it did, however, 

appropriately correct Saenz’s sentence after its illegality was 

brought to the court’s attention. By doing so, the district court 

provided Saenz with the only remedy available for an alleged

breach of the plea agreement. Accordingly, we affirm.