Title: State v. Schaal
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 111513
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: November 18, 2016

1 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS 
 
No. 111,513 
 
STATE OF KANSAS, 
Appellee, 
 
v. 
 
WILLIAM F. SCHAAL, JR., 
Appellant. 
 
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 
 
1. 
An appellate court reviews a district court's ruling on a presentence motion to 
withdraw plea for abuse of discretion. 
 
2.  
Judicial discretion is abused if judicial action is (1) arbitrary, fanciful, or 
unreasonable, i.e., if no reasonable person would have taken the view adopted by the trial 
court; (2) based on an error of law, i.e., if the discretion is guided by an erroneous legal 
conclusion; or (3) based on an error of fact, i.e., if substantial competent evidence does 
not support a factual finding on which a prerequisite conclusion of law or the exercise of 
discretion is based. 
 
3. 
 
A plea of guilty may be withdrawn at any time before sentence is adjudged for 
good cause shown. 
 
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4. 
 
In determining whether a defendant has shown good cause to withdraw a plea, a 
district court should consider the three factors identified in State v. Edgar, 281 Kan. 30, 
36, 127 P.3d 986 (2006):  (1) whether the defendant was represented by competent 
counsel; (2) whether the defendant was misled, coerced, mistreated, or unfairly taken 
advantage of; and (3) whether the plea was fairly and understandingly made. 
 
5. 
 
The three Edgar factors should not be applied to the exclusion of other factors. 
 
Review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion filed July 10, 2015. 
Appeal from Wyandotte District Court; ROBERT L. SERRA, judge. Opinion filed November 18, 2016. 
Judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming the district court is reversed. Judgment of the district court is 
reversed and the case is remanded to the district court with directions. 
 
Samuel Schirer, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, was on the brief for appellant. 
 
Sheryl L. Lidtke, chief deputy district attorney, Jerome A. Gorman, district attorney, and Derek 
Schmidt, attorney general, were on the brief for appellee. 
 
The opinion of the court was delivered by 
 
NUSS, C.J.:  William F. Schaal, Jr., pled guilty to the crime of eluding a police 
officer. Before sentencing, he moved to withdraw his plea, which the district court 
denied. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial. We now reverse and remand to the 
district court for further proceedings because it based its denial, in substantial part, on 
several findings that were unsupported by substantial competent evidence. 
 
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FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
 
William Schaal, Jr., was charged with committing five or more moving violations 
while eluding a police officer in violation of K.S.A. 2012 Supp. 8-1568. In consultation 
with his attorney, Schaal entered into a plea agreement with the State. It agreed not to 
bring additional charges and to recommend the mitigated sentence of the presumptive 
sentencing grid block with no additional departures from the block's provisions. 
 
Eluding a police officer under these circumstances was a level 9 person felony, 
and Schaal's criminal history score was E. This combination created a presumptive 
sentence of probation under the grid block of 9 to 11 months. K.S.A. 2012 Supp. 21-
6804. 
 
Schaal entered his guilty plea at a hearing in November 2012. Based upon Schaal's 
responses to its questioning, the district court determined that Schaal "voluntarily, 
knowingly, and understandingly" waived his rights. It accepted his plea and scheduled 
sentencing for January 2013. 
 
According to later testimony of Schaal's attorney and in court comments by the 
prosecutor, it was not until January 2013 that they learned he was already serving 
probation for another crime in the county. And Schaal's attorney then told his client about 
the negative effect his probationary status would have on his presumptive sentence for 
the new crime. Specifically, a sentencing judge is authorized to forego a presumptive 
sentence of probation and impose a custodial sentence for a new felony offense 
committed while the accused is on probation. See K.S.A. 2012 Supp. 21-6604(f). 
 
After learning he could receive a custodial sentence, Schaal hired a new attorney 
who filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. A hearing on that motion occurred in May 
of 2013—6 months after his plea hearing. There, Schaal testified he had understood the 
plea agreement to mean he would receive probation in the range of 9 to 11 months. He 
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further testified his understanding was based on conversations with his former attorney 
who assured him he would receive probation. 
 
The district court questioned Schaal and considered whether he honestly answered 
the questions presented to him during the plea colloquy 6 months earlier. During the 
court's consideration of that prior hearing, it opined on Schaal's credibility: 
 
"THE COURT:  Let me ask you a couple questions. See if you remember these. 
 
"One of them was:  Do you understand that any agreement that the pros—that 
they make—being your attorney and the prosecutor—is not binding on the Court; and if 
they were to agree to a sentence of probation, that would have absolutely no effect on me 
in terms of binding effect, and I could sentence you to anything that is contained within 
the statute for this offense and for your criminal history? 
 
"And if you would have answered no, I wouldn't have gone any further. 
 
 
"Next question:  Has anybody promised you anything or threatened you with 
anything in order to get you to plead guilty today? 
 
 
"If you would have said yes, I wouldn't have gone further. 
 
 
"The next question was:  Has anybody promised you that you're going to get 
probation? 
 
"And if you would have said yes, that would have ended it. You obviously said 
no. 
 
"MR. SCHAAL:  (Unintelligible)— 
 
"THE COURT:  So you're telling the Court that you lied to me on all of these 
answers; is that correct? 
 
5 
 
"MR. SCHAAL:  I took my lawyer's advice. 
 
"THE COURT:  Okay. 
 
"MR. SCHAAL:  I—I—I said there was even on that I— 
 
"THE COURT:  Answer my question. 
 
"MR. SCHAAL:  Okay. 
 
"THE COURT:  You lied on this then? 
 
"MR. LAMB [defense counsel]:  Judge, at this point, I'm going to advise my 
client to take the fifth. 
 
"MR. SCHAAL:  Okay. Okay. Thank you. 
 
"THE COURT:  Okay." (Emphasis added.) 
 
Contrary to the court's recollection at this plea withdrawal hearing in May 2013, it 
had never actually asked Schaal at the November 2012 plea hearing whether he 
understood that the plea agreement was not binding on the court. And contrary to the 
court's May recollection, it also had never actually asked Schaal at that earlier November 
hearing if anyone promised him probation in exchange for his plea. 
 
The attorney who handled Schaal's plea hearing testified and denied that he had 
promised Schaal probation. But he did admit that Schaal's probationary status was not 
made clear to him or his client until sometime after Schaal had entered his guilty plea. 
The prosecutor admitted to similar confusion at the time. 
 
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At the close of brief arguments the court ruled from the bench. It referred to the 
questions it believed it asked at the plea hearing, opined again on Schaal's credibility, and 
denied his motion: 
 
 
"We do plea petitions. I read six pages of instructions and questions at length to make 
sure that whoever is entering a plea is doing so, as the language of the—of the—our 
memorandum says, 'voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly. 
 
 
"It was my opinion after we did this, after asking Mr. Schaal these questions, that he was 
doing it in that manner. 
 
 
"I don't—we're not playing games here. We don't take pleas and then somebody—the 
result comes that there's another problem. We want to make sure that it's done voluntarily, it's 
done truthfully. 
 
 
"And for the defendant to come up and say, for all practical purposes, that he lied to me 
on all the questions is not going to get the job done. 
 
 
"Motion is denied." (Emphasis added.) 
 
A month later, the court, through another judge, imposed a 9-month custodial 
sentence. Schaal appealed the denial of his motion, and a panel of the Court of Appeals 
affirmed the denial in an unpublished opinion. State v. Schaal, No. 111,513, 2015 WL 
4460404 (Kan. App. 2015). 
 
We granted Schaal's petition for review; our jurisdiction is under K.S.A. 60-
2101(b). More facts will be added as necessary to the analysis. 
 
7 
 
ANALYSIS 
 
In Schaal's petition for review, he alleges the district court erred because it:  (1) 
relied on incorrect factual assumptions; (2) applied an incorrect legal standard in 
evaluating his plea withdrawal motion; and (3) committed misconduct by accusing him of 
lying during a judicial cross-examination. 
 
Our analysis of the first issue is dispositive of this appeal. Accordingly, we will 
not consider Schaal's other two alleged errors. See State ex rel. Schmidt v. City of 
Wichita, 303 Kan. 650, 668, 367 P.3d 282 (2016); Powell v. Kansas Yellow Cab Co., 156 
Kan. 150, 157, 131 P.2d 686, 690 (1942) (appellate court will not rule on issues if 
unnecessary to decision unless error is likely to reoccur on remand). 
  
Issue:  The district court abused its discretion by basing its denial, in substantial 
part, on several findings that were unsupported by substantial competent evidence. 
 
The Court of Appeals panel concluded that although the district court had a faulty 
recollection about the questions it asked of Schaal during the plea colloquy in November 
2012, "the mistake had no legally material impact" on its ruling denying Schaal's motion 
to withdraw plea 6 months later. Schaal, 2015 WL 4460404, at *3. 
 
We disagree. As explained below, we conclude that the district court abused its 
discretion when it relied, in substantial part, on its mistaken recollections to reject 
Schaal's motion. 
 
Standard of Review 
 
Before sentencing, a plea may be withdrawn for good cause. K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 
22-3210(d)(1). This court reviews a district court's ruling on such a presentence motion 
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for abuse of discretion. State v. Kenney, 299 Kan. 389, 393, 323 P.3d 1288 (2014). Our 
abuse of discretion standard is well-established: 
 
"Judicial discretion is abused if judicial action is (1) arbitrary, fanciful, or unreasonable, 
i.e., no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the trial court; (2) based on an 
error of law, i.e., the discretion is guided by an erroneous legal conclusion; or (3) based 
on an error of fact, i.e., substantial competent evidence does not support a factual finding 
on which a prerequisite conclusion of law or the exercise of discretion is based." State v. 
Davisson, 303 Kan. 1062, 1065, 370 P.3d 423 (2016) (citing State v. Beaman, 295 Kan. 
853, 865, 286 P.3d 876 [2012]). 
 
The party asserting an abuse of discretion bears the burden of establishing such 
abuse. See State v. Schow, 287 Kan. 529, 541, 197 P.3d 825 (2008). 
 
Discussion 
 
We find valuable guidance in another case where a district court was mistaken in 
its recollection about what had been said before accepting a defendant's plea:  State v. 
White, 289 Kan. 279, 211 P.3d 805 (2009). In White's motion to withdraw his no contest 
plea, he claimed his attorney had failed to advise him of the maximum penalty he could 
receive for his crimes. Even though the written plea agreement misstated the maximum 
penalty, the district court denied the motion because it determined that no prejudice 
occurred. It found that its colloquy with White at the plea hearing had fully informed 
White of the consequences of his plea, i.e., the maximum penalty for his charges. The 
court stated: 
 
"'[A]s part of any plea proceeding the Court engages in a detailed colloquy with the 
defendant . . . and I believe the record would bear out that I took extra care to make sure 
Mr. White understood the serious consequences of what he was undertaking to propose to 
the Court.'" 289 Kan. at 287-88. 
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But after reviewing the hearing transcript in the record on appeal, this court 
determined that the district court had made confusing statements about White's parole 
eligibility during the plea hearing, which may not have fully informed him of the 
consequences of his plea. We ruled that the court erroneously believed—based on its 
faulty recollection of the plea colloquy—that it had clarified the defendant's "probation" 
eligibility at the plea hearing. 289 Kan. at 288. 
 
So we concluded substantial competent evidence did not support the district 
court's findings that the possible penalties, and the consequences of entering a guilty plea, 
were clearly explained to the defendant. And we reversed the denial of the motion to 
withdraw the plea. 
 
Here, Schaal emphasizes similar discrepancies between several questions the 
district court believed it asked at the November 2012 plea hearing and the questions it 
actually asked. First, according to the plea hearing transcript, the court asked in general if 
any promises were made to Schaal in exchange for his guilty plea. But at the May 2013 
plea withdrawal hearing, the court said it also had asked Schaal more specifically—if 
"anybody promised you that you're going to get probation?" 
 
Second, the plea hearing transcript does not contain any questions from the court 
to Schaal about the nonbinding effect of the plea agreement on the sentencing judge, 
especially regarding "a sentence of probation." But at the May 2013 plea withdrawal 
hearing, the court said it had asked such a question in November 2012. The court then 
concluded Schaal must have responded at the plea hearing that he understood the court 
was not bound by the agreement, and he "obviously" said no one had promised him 
probation—otherwise the court would not have proceeded. 
 
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The panel appeared to minimize the impact of these discrepancies by ruling that 
the district court simply chose to believe Schaal's "plea" attorney, and not Schaal. 
According to the panel, the district court therefore found the attorney had not truly 
promised his client probation months earlier. So "[w]hether Schaal was asked and 
answered pointed questions about promises of probation at the plea hearing is irrelevant 
if the facts show he never received such a promise. And the facts, as we must view them, 
show precisely that." Schaal, 2015 WL 4460404, at *3. 
 
We observe several difficulties with the panel's analysis. First, the record does not 
show that the district court's denial of Schaal's motion to withdraw his plea actually was 
based on that particular point. Simply put, the court never explicitly found that Schaal 
was not misled into believing he would receive probation. 
 
Second, the panel itself properly expressed concern about the "troubling tenor" of 
the plea withdrawal hearing. Schaal, 2015 WL 4460404, at *1. While Schaal was on the 
witness stand, based upon the court's mistaken memory of the colloquy at the November 
2012 plea hearing, it outright asked him several times if he was lying:  (1) "So you're 
telling the Court that you lied to me on all of those answers [at the plea hearing]; is that 
correct?" and (2) "You lied on this then?" More important, the court's determination that 
Schaal was lying when answering all the questions at the plea hearing was the primary—
if not only—basis for denying his motion. "[F]or the defendant to come up and say, for 
all practical purposes, that he lied to me on all the questions is not going to get the job 
done [i.e., establish good cause under K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 22-3210(d)]. Motion is denied." 
(Emphasis added.) 
 
In sum, the panel's analysis appears to say it is a proven fact that (1) no promise of 
probation was made to Schaal merely because (2) the district court believed Schaal's 
attorney over his client that no promise had ever been made. But the district court 
essentially found Schaal had been lying throughout—a judicial determination based on 
11 
 
some faulty court recollections from the plea hearing 6 months prior. So these mistaken 
recollections likely affected any credibility choice the panel believed the district court 
had made between Schaal and his attorney. And as mentioned, these erroneous 
memories—and the conclusion based upon them that Schaal had been repeatedly lying to 
the court—also influenced the court's actual decision to deny his motion. 
 
Consequently, we hold the district court abused its discretion because it based its 
conclusions—in substantial part—on errors of fact, i.e., several findings are unsupported 
by substantial competent evidence. See Davisson, 303 Kan. at 1065 (judicial discretion is 
abused if substantial competent evidence does not support a factual finding on which 
such discretion is based); White, 289 Kan. at 288 (reversing denial of motion to withdraw 
plea because substantial competent evidence does not support district court's factual 
findings). 
 
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed. The decision of the district court 
is reversed, and the matter is remanded for a new hearing on Schaal's motion to withdraw 
his plea. Because Schaal's motion was filed before his sentencing, on remand the court 
should determine if Schaal has shown "good cause" for the withdrawal of his plea. K.S.A. 
2015 Supp. 22-3210(d)(1). 
 
At this hearing the court should also explicitly consider in its analysis the three 
factors identified in State v. Edgar, 281 Kan. 30, 36, 127 P.3d 986 (2006). We have 
described them as "viable benchmarks for judicial discretion" when considering a motion 
to withdraw a plea, although they should not be applied "to the exclusion of other 
factors." State v. Aguilar, 290 Kan. 506, 512, 231 P.3d 563 (2010). These factors are:  
"(1) whether the defendant was represented by competent counsel; (2) whether the 
defendant was misled, coerced, mistreated, or unfairly taken advantage of; and (3) 
whether the plea was fairly and understandingly made." State v. Fritz, 299 Kan. 153, 154, 
321 P.3d 763 (2014).