Title: Gordon v. Nagle
Citation: 647 So. 2d 91
Docket Number: 1921941
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: September 30, 1994

647 So. 2d 91 (1994)
Sammie Lee GORDON
v.
John E. NAGLE, Warden; and James H. Evans, Attorney General of the State of Alabama.
1921941.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
September 30, 1994.
*92 Douglas H. Scofield of Scofield, West &amp; French, Birmingham, for appellant.
James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., and Cecil G. Brendle, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellees.
SHORES, Justice.
The Court's opinion of March 25, 1994, is withdrawn and the following is substituted therefor:
The question certified arose out of a habeas corpus petition brought by an Alabama prisoner, Sammie Lee Gordon. In his petition, Gordon attacks the validity of sentences imposed on him in 1986 under the Habitual Felony Offender Act, Ala.Code 1975, § 13A-5-9 et seq., and the validity of an underlying 1973 conviction utilized for enhancement in the 1986 cases, on the grounds that in the 1973 proceedings the court did not advise Gordon of his right to apply for youthful offender treatment.
The United States district court held that because Gordon had not presented his claim in state court, he is now barred from presenting it in the federal court by the limitations provision in Rule 32, A.R.Crim.P. Rule 32.1(a) imposes a two-year limitations period on claims for post-conviction relief based upon federal or state constitutional grounds. However, collateral relief is available under subsections (b) and (c) if the court was without jurisdiction to render the judgment or to impose the sentence, or if the sentence imposed exceeds the maximum authorized by law or is otherwise not authorized by law. Claims alleging jurisdictional defects and excessive sentences under Rule 32.1(b) and (c) are not subject to the two-year time bar. Ladd v. State, 577 So. 2d 926, 926-27 (Ala. Crim.App.1990), cert. denied, 577 So. 2d 927 (Ala.1991).
In certifying the question before us, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals explained:
Gordon v. Nagle, 2 F.3d 385, 388-89 (11th Cir.1993).
The confusion in Alabama law is the result of contradictory holdings by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Sampson and Mosley and that court's interpretation of our decision in Ex parte Rivers. The Court of Criminal Appeals has read Ex parte Rivers as holding that any defect in the entry of a plea of guilty is always a matter of jurisdiction. Ex parte Rivers held that the failure to inform a defendant of the minimum and maximum sentences constituted a defect in an entry of a plea of guilty that went to the voluntariness of that plea and, therefore, was subject to collateral challenge under Boykin v. Alabama, infra. The collateral challenge in Ex parte Rivers to the plea of guilty was made within the two-year period of limitations.
Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S. Ct. 1709, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274 (1969), established the procedural due process requirements that must be met before a guilty plea can be considered to have been voluntarily and intelligently entered. In Boykin, the defendant had been convicted on five separate charges of common law robbery and had been sentenced to die by electrocution. This Court affirmed his convictions. The United States Supreme Court reversed the convictions, citing with approval the conclusion of the three dissenting Justices of this Court who would have reversed the judgment on the grounds that the record did not disclose that the defendant had voluntarily and understandingly entered his plea of guilty. Id., 395 U.S.  at 242, 89 S. Ct.  at 1713, 23 L. Ed. 2d  at 278.
In Boykin, the United States Supreme Court drew an analogy between the cases in which a guilty plea is taken, waiving the right to trial, and those cases in which the right to counsel is waived:
395 U.S.  at 243-44, 89 S. Ct.  at 1712, 23 L. Ed. 2d  at 279-80.
The procedural requirements of Boykin have been incorporated into the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure at Rule 14.4.
Subsequent to Boykin, the Alabama appellate courts held that in order to enter a knowing and valid guilty plea, the defendant must be informed on the record of the maximum and minimum possible sentences. In Jones v. State, 48 Ala.App. 32, 261 So. 2d 451 (1972), the Court of Criminal Appeals cited Boykin v. Alabama as authority to remand the case to the trial court for a further hearing "as to whether or not the appellant, before pleading guilty, had been informed as to the minimum and maximum punishment for grand larceny." In 1973, this Court followed Jones v. State:
Carter v. State, 291 Ala. 83, at 85, 277 So. 2d 896, at 897-98 (1973). It is this holding upon which Ex parte Rivers was based.
As the United States Supreme Court explained in Boykin, a guilty plea waives nonjurisdictional constitutional rights. Things that have been held to be subject to waiver, in addition to those rights stated in Boykin, include claims of illegal search and seizure,[1] coerced confession,[2] improper grand jury selection,[3] and denial of speedy trial;[4] and a defendant may waive the right to present the entrapment defense.[5] "Nineteenth Annual Review of Criminal Procedure: U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals 1988-89," 78 Georgetown L.J. 853 at 1006 (April 1990). However, a guilty plea does not waive such jurisdictional challenges to a conviction as an argument that the indictment failed to charge an offense[6] or that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction.[7]Id. at 1007.
Since Boykin, Alabama trial judges, when accepting a plea of guilty, have given a "Boykin colloquy," which gives an explanation of the defendant's constitutional rights and includes the maximum and minimum sentences that he can receive. The use of a written explanation of rights and a plea-of-guilty form is also authorized by the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 14.4. The form has been commonly known as the "Ireland form," because its use was first upheld in Ireland v. State, 47 Ala.App. 65, 250 So.2d *95 602, 604 (Ala.Crim.App.1971). Rule 14.4, amended effective January 1, 1991, sets forth the current procedure for the acceptance of a guilty plea. That procedure includes conducting a "Boykin colloquy" between the trial judge and the accused and using a written explanation-of-rights form, similar to the "Ireland form"; the form is signed by the accused, his counsel, and the trial judge when a plea of guilty is accepted.
The question before us concerns the failure to advise a defendant of his right to be considered for youthful offender treatment pursuant to Ala.Code 1975, § 15-19-1 et seq. The Alabama Youthful Offender Act was modeled after the New York Youthful Offender Act and was approved on February 10,1972. See Coleman v. Alabama, 827 F.2d 1469, 1470 n. 1 (11th Cir.1987). An adjudication of youthful offender status is very different from conviction as an adult, because it is not deemed a conviction of crime at all:
Raines v. State, 294 Ala. 360, 363, 317 So. 2d 559, 561 (1975). The determination whether a defendant is to be granted youthful offender status is left to the discretion of the trial judge. Section 15-19-1. An adjudication of youthful offender status may not be considered a prior felony conviction within the meaning of the Habitual Felony Offender Act, § 13A-5-9 et seq. Ex parte Thomas, 435 So. 2d 1324, 1326 (Ala.1982); Thomas v. State, 445 So. 2d 992, 994 n. 1 (Ala.Crim.App. 1984).
In 1975, this Court imposed an affirmative duty on the trial court to apprise an age-eligible defendant of his right to possible youthful offender status. Clemmons v. State, 294 Ala. 746, 750, 321 So. 2d 238, 243 (1975). However, we held that advising an age-eligible defendant was not mandated by the Constitution of the United States or by the Constitution of the State of Alabama. 294 Ala. at 750, 321 So. 2d  at 242, 243. In 1987, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the failure to advise an age-eligible defendant that he has the right to request consideration for youthful offender treatment violates his federal due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Coleman v. Alabama, 827 F.2d 1469, 1475 (11th Cir. 1987).
This Court answered the question of when the age-eligible defendant should be informed of the possibility of youthful offender status in Ex parte Petty, 548 So. 2d 636, 637 (Ala.1989):
Id. at 638. (Emphasis in original.)
In Lochli v. State, 565 So. 2d 294 (Ala.Crim. App.1990), the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals cited Coleman with approval:
565 So. 2d  at 297. In Lochli, the defendant's plea of guilty was not set aside. The trial court had taken the remedial action of allowing the defendant Lochli to apply retroactively for youthful offender treatment; Lochli had made no allegation, nor had he offered any proof, that he would not have pleaded guilty had he been informed of his right to apply for youthful offender treatment.
Following the certification of the question addressed here, this Court, on October 15, 1993, released Ex parte Cantu. In that case, Cantu pleaded guilty to trafficking in cocaine, but did not appeal. He later filed a petition seeking post-conviction relief under Rule 32, A.R.Crim.P., on the grounds that the trial judge had failed to advise him of the maximum sentence he could receive, and that he had not entered his guilty plea voluntarily with an understanding of the consequences of his plea. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Cantu's conviction on the authority of Ex parte Rivers, 597 So. 2d 1308 (Ala. 1991). Cantu v. State, [Ms. CR-91-726, September 30, 1992] 1992 WL 240979 (Ala.Crim. App.1992). In its October 15 opinion, this Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and overruled Ex parte Rivers insofar as it permitted a post-judgment challenge to a guilty plea. This Court reasoned in Ex parte Cantu that by failing to raise the adequacy of the Boykin colloquy by direct appeal, the defendant Cantu was procedurally barred from raising it in a collateral attack under Rule 32. That holding has now been modified on application for rehearing to hold that a defect in a guilty plea may be collaterally challenged under Rule 32 if the challenge is brought within the two-year limitations period set forth in Rule 32.2(c), A.R.Crim.P. Ex parte Cantu, [Ms. 1920426, April 15, 1994] 1994 WL 129749 (Ala.1994).
We therefore answer the question in the negative. The failure to inform an agequalified defendant of his right to apply for youthful offender treatment goes to the voluntariness of the guilty plea, not to the jurisdiction of the trial court. The question of the voluntariness of a guilty plea in a failure-to-advise case may be raised upon direct appeal or it may be raised collaterally under Rule 32 if it is raised within the limitations period of Rule 32.2(c), A.R.Crim.P.
QUESTION ANSWERED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and MADDOX, HOUSTON, STEAGALL, KENNEDY, INGRAM and COOK, JJ., concur.
[1]  Smith v. United States, 876 F.2d 655, 657 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 869, 110 S. Ct. 195, 107 L. Ed. 2d 149 (1989).
[2]  McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771, 90 S. Ct. 1441, 1449, 25 L. Ed. 2d 763 (1970).
[3]  Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 267, 93 S. Ct. 1602, 1608, 36 L. Ed. 2d 235 (1973).
[4]  Lebowitz v. United States, 877 F.2d 207, 209 (2d Cir.1989).
[5]  United States v. Sarmiento, 786 F.2d 665, 668 (5th Cir.1986).
[6]  United States v. Morales-Rosales, 838 F.2d 1359, 1361 (5th Cir.1988).
[7]  United States v. Mathews, 833 F.2d 161, 164 (9th Cir.1987).