## IN THE MISSOURI COURT OF APPEALS WESTERN DISTRICT

LEO A. CRANFORD , Appellant , v.

STATE OF MISSOURI , Respondent . ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) WD 81558
OPINION FILED: May 28, 2019

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Pettis County, Missouri The Honorable Robert L. Koffman , Judge
Before Division Four : Karen King Mitchell, Chief Judge, and

Alok Ahuja and Cynthia L. Martin, Judges Leo Cranford appeals, following an evidentiary hearing, the denial of his Rule 24.035 1 motion for post

- conviction relief. Cra nford raises a single point on appeal; he argues that plea counsel provided ineffective assistance in failing to advise him that his sentence for first

- degree child molestation under § 566.067 2 had to be served without eligibility for parole and that his

c onviction of first

- degree statutory sodomy under § 566.062 required him to serve at least 85% of his sentence before becoming parole eligible. The motion court overruled Cranford’s motion on

1 All rule references are to the Missouri Supreme Court Rules (2018) , unless otherwise specified. 2 All statutory citations are to the Revised Statutes of Missouri, as updated through the 2014 supplement, unless otherwise noted.2

the ground that parole eligibility is a collateral consequence o f a guilty plea about which counsel has no duty to inform a client and, therefore, the failure to do so did not amount to ineffective assistance. Finding no error, we affirm. Background On June 20, 2016, Cranford appeared before the plea court to enter g uilty pleas to
first

- degree child molestation and first

- degree statutory sodomy. At the hearing, the plea court discussed the various rights attendant to a trial that Cranford was relinquishing by pleading guilty; Cranford acknowledged understanding them all and affirmed that he wished to proceed with his pleas. Cranford advised the court that he was pleading guilty of his own free will because he had committed the crimes with which he was charged. The prosecutor then established the following
factual ba sis for Cranford’s crimes:

On July 29th of last year, the Defendant was in charge of the care of the child alleged by initials in Counts I and II. That child was two years old. While the Defendant was left in charge of that child, the parents were planni ng to make a quick run to town. When they left the home, they quickly realized they had forgotten something, [so] they returned to the home. When they returned, Mr. Cr anford was nowhere to be found. The mother initially went to look to try to locate Mr. Cranford while the father went in to check on the child. When the father walked in shortly followed by the mother, they found their two

- year
- old laying on the bed with her diaper pulled down and the Defendant on his knees s tanding

— kneeling over th e child with his penis exposed. As the father came in, initially to make contact with the Defendant, the Defendant got up and left the home and announced that he was leaving to go turn himself in and ran out of the home. He shor tly thereafter returned

— went down to the Sheriff’s Department, walked in and notified two separate officers that he was there to turn himself in and indicated that he [had] almost relapsed. He says almost.
He then later was [M] irandized and confessed to walking into the room shortly aft er the parents left, pulling down the two

- year
- old’s diaper, pulling his pants down and beginning to fondle her vagina shortly before the parents walked back in and interrupted the events. He was placed under arrest and, obviously, that’s what brings [ this ] before us.3 I note the statement that he [had] almost relapsed because the Defendant, as alleged and as noted to the Co urt in Count II, has a prior

— is a p rior convicted sexual offender. Following the prosecutor’s recitation and the plea court’s desc ription of an “open plea,” the plea court asked Cranford if he wished to proceed with his pleas or if he wished to withdraw them and proceed to trial. Cranford responded, “I’ll maintain my plea.” The plea court accepted the pleas
and set the matter for s entencing. At sentencing, the State requested the maximum senten ce available on both counts (30 years’ imprisonment) and asked th at the sentences be run consecutively. Plea counsel sought

con current ten

- year terms. While the plea court was discussing wi th Cranford its rationale for the sentence it was about to hand down, the prosecutor noted that the first

- degree child molestation conviction was, by statute, a “parole

- free sentence.” The court then noted that if it imposed the maximum sentence, Cranford would be “100 years old by the time [he] came out.” The plea court then pronounced Cranford’s sentences: So it is the intent of this Court to sentence you to 30 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections on each sentence, and I’m not going to run th em consecutive to each other. This is an AOWP , 3 you’re going to do 30 anyway. You will be at an age when you get out, unless the law changes, where you will be incapable, in my opinion, of doing this conduct in the future, which is the goal. I won’t run them consecutive because you turned yourself in and said I did it. But there are consequences to the action. I mean, you cannot be allowed to go out there and be a menace to the community anymore. The plea court then advised Cranford of his rights under Rule 24.035 and questioned him about the assistance of plea counsel. Cranford advised the plea court that he had no complaints with plea counsel’s representation in any way, and he further acknowled ged that, in so stating, he

3 Apparently this stands fo r an offense without parole eligibility.4

understood that his assertion could later be used to defeat any allegation that plea counsel provided
ineffective assistance. Following his delivery to the D epartment of C orrections, Cranford timely filed a pro se Rule 24.035 m otion. Appointed counsel thereafter timely filed an amended motion, which alleged

— in part

— that plea counsel provided ineffective assistance in failing to inform Cranford of the parole eligibility consequences of his guilty pleas. The motion court (who ha d also been the plea and sentencing court) granted an evidentiary hearing, wherein it took judicial notice of the underlying criminal case and received test imony from Cranford. At the hearing, Cranford testified that he was not aware of the parole eligibi lity consequences attendant to his convictions when he pled guilty, and, had he known, he would not have pled guilty, but would have gone to t rial. During cross

- examination, Cranford steadfastly maintained that he always wanted to take the case to trial, but his plea counsel would not allow it. He also repeatedly denied responsibility and claimed that he had not done anything wrong. The motion court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law, overruling Cranford’s
motion. The motion court noted tha t, “ when the Court inquired of [Cranford] as to whether h e had any complaints about his l egal counsel, he did not tell the Court what he now expresses. ” The motion court concluded that “[h] is testimony now is not credible .” Specifically with respect to
C ranford’s claim regarding knowledge of parole eligibility, the motion court found, “ There is no evidence that plea counsel advised him one way or the o ther concerning the coll ateral consequences of his plea,” and concluded that, because “[p] arole eligibility is considered a
collateral consequence of a plea, about which counsel has no obligation to i nform the defendant[, c]ounsel’s failure to inform the movant of the parole eligibility does not a ff ect the5

voluntariness of his guilty plea .” As such , the motion court overruled Cranford’s motion, and he now appeals.
Standard of Review

“ Appellate review of the motion court’s denial of a Rule 24.035 motion for post

- conviction relief is limited to determining whether the motion court’s findings of fact a nd conclusions of law are clearly erroneous. ” Bishop v. State , 566 S.W.3d 269, 271 (Mo. App. W.D. 2019)

. “The motion court’s findings and conclusions are clearly erroneous only if, after reviewing the entire record, the appellate court is left with the d efinite and firm impression that a mistake has been made.” Id

. (quoting Simmons v. State , 502 S.W.3d 739, 741 (Mo. App. W.D. 2016) ). Analysis In his sole point on appeal, Cranford argues that plea counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to inf orm him of the parole eligibility consequences of his guilty pleas.

“ To establish that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, [a movant] must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that [plea] counsel failed to exercise the level of skill and dil igence of a reasonably competent attorney and that [the movant] was prejudiced by that failure. ” Fonville
v. State , 563 S.W.3d 794, 799

- 800 (Mo. App. W.D. 2018).

“ The validity of a plea of guilty depends on whether it was made voluntarily and intelligent ly, which means, inter alia , that the defendant must enter the plea with knowledge of the
d irect consequences of the plea.” Reynolds v. State , 994 S.W.2d 944, 946 (Mo. banc 1999) (internal citation omitted). “ Eligibility for parole . . . is merely a ‘ collateral ’ consequence of a defendant’ s plea, and, therefore, ‘ neither counsel nor the trial court is under an affirmative obligation to inform a defendant of the parole consequences of the guilty plea. ’ ” Webb v. State , 334 S.W.3d 126, 129 (Mo. banc 2011 ) (quoting Reynolds , 994 S.W.2d at 946 ).6

Despite the holdings in both Reynolds and Webb , Cranford argues that the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Padilla v. Kentucky , 559 U.S. 356 (2010), “eschewed this ‘direct’
versus ‘ collateral ’ consequences d istinction .” Contrary to Cranford’s argument, the Supreme Court expressly declined to address the propriety of the distinction. Padilla , 559 U.S. at 365 (noting that, though the Court had “ never applied a distinction between direct and collateral
consequ ences to define the scope of constitutionally ‘ rea sonable professional assistance[,]’

. . . [w] hether that distinction is appropriate is a question we need not consider in this case”). Thus,

“ the well

- established principle that plea counsel is not ineffec tive for failing to inform a defendant of the collateral consequences of a guilty plea is unaffected by Padilla v. Kentucky , 559 U.S. 356 (2010) .” Voegtlin v. State , 464 S.W.3d 544, 555 (Mo. App. E.D. 2015) (internal citations omitted);
see also Simmons v. State , 432 S.W.3d 306, 310 (Mo. App. E.D. 2014) (“ It is clear that Missouri courts have declined to expand Padilla’ s reasoning beyond the deportati on context into parole

matters. Under existing case law, counsel has no obligation to advise a criminal d efendant about the parole c onsequences of his guilty plea.” (internal citations omitted) ). As such, Cranford’s
claim is without merit and denied. 4

4 In any event, “ Article V, § 2 of the Missouri Constitution provides that the Missouri Supreme Court’ s
‘ decisions shall be controlling in all other courts. ’ ” Johnson v. State , 451 S.W.3d 276, 281 (Mo. App. W.D. 2 014) (Ahuja, C.J., concurring) (quoting Mo. Const. art. V , § 2). Unless “ Reynolds ’ [s] holding on this federal constitutional issue is overruled by the Supreme Court of the United States or by the Missouri Supreme Court, it is binding on this Court. ” Id

. As such, even if we were so inclined to accept Cranford’s argument, we are constitutionally precluded from doing so.7 Conclusion The motion court did not clearly err in overruling Cranford’s Rule 24.035 motion. Its judgment is affirmed.

Karen King Mitchell , Chief Judge Alok Ahuja and Cynthia L. Martin, Judges, concur.