Title: PEOPLE OF MI V AVANA WILLIAMS
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 116535
State: Michigan
Issuer: Michigan Supreme Court
Date: June 1, 2001

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Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 48909 
C hief Justice 
Justices 
Maura D. Corrigan  
Michael F. Cavanagh 
Elizabeth A. Weaver 
Marilyn Kelly 
Clifford W. Taylor 
Robert P. Young, Jr. 
Opinion 
Stephen J. Markman 
FILED JUNE 1, 2001  
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,  
Plaintiff-Appellee,  
v  
No. 116535  
AVANA WILLIAMS,  
Defendant-Appellant.  
PER CURIAM  
This case concerns the procedure to be followed in guilty  
plea proceedings when the court determines that it cannot  
impose the sentence that was contemplated by a preliminary  
understanding under People v Cobbs, 443 Mich 276; 505 NW2d 208  
(1993).  The defendant contends that, in those circumstances,  
when the court offers the defendant the opportunity to  
withdraw the plea, it must indicate the sentence that will be  
imposed if defendant elects to allow the plea to stand.  We  
hold that there is no such requirement and affirm the circuit  
court’s judgment.  
I  
Defendant Williams was charged with first-degree retail  
fraud.1  On October 16, 1998, she appeared and, after a  
conference between counsel and the court, indicated that she  
wished to plead guilty to that charge as a fourth felony  
offender2 with an understanding under People v Cobbs that the  
sentence would be no more than nine months. The court said,  
“I will agree to that.”  The defendant then offered a factual  
basis for the plea and admitted three previous felony  
convictions.  
Defendant appeared for sentencing on November 6, 1998.  
After a conference between counsel and the court, the  
following exchange occurred:  
The Court: You understand you have a right to 
withdraw your guilty plea, Ms. Williams?  
Ms. Williams: Yes.  
The Court:  And you wish to go forward with 
sentencing nonetheless?  
Ms. Williams: Yes.  
The Court: And you understand I’m not going  
to abide by the Cobb agreement?  
Ms. Williams: Yes.  
The court then imposed a 1½-to-15-year sentence.  
1 MCL 750.356c; MSA 28.588(3).  
2 MCL 769.12; MSA 28.1084.  
2  
 
Appellate counsel was appointed for the defendant and  
moved for resentencing, arguing that because the court did not  
tell the defendant the intended sentence, her affirmance of  
her guilty plea was involuntary.  The circuit court disagreed  
and denied the motion.  The Court of Appeals denied the  
defendant’s application for leave to appeal.  The defendant  
has now filed an application for leave to appeal to this  
Court.  
II  
In People v Killebrew, 416 Mich 189; 330 NW2d 834 (1982),  
we approved a procedure by which a trial court could have  
limited participation in the plea bargaining process. As we  
explained the approved procedure:  
[W]e now hold that if the plea agreement 
offered to the court by the prosecutor and  
defendant includes a non-binding prosecutorial 
recommendation of a specific sentence, the judge 
may accept the guilty plea (after consideration of 
the presentence report), yet refuse to be bound by 
the recommended sentence.  The judge retains his 
freedom to choose a different sentence. However, 
the trial judge must explain to the defendant that 
the recommendation was not accepted by the court, 
and state the sentence that the court finds to be  
the appropriate disposition.  The court must then  
give the defendant the opportunity to affirm or 
withdraw his guilty plea.  
Through this procedure, the defendant will be 
fully aware of all the consequences of his guilty 
plea.  He will thus be able to make a knowing and 
intelligent waiver of his right to trial and its 
companion rights.  Additionally, the judge will 
have full exercise of his sentencing discretion. 
[416 Mich 209-210.]  
3  
 
 
 
In People v Cobbs, supra, we modified Killebrew to allow  
somewhat greater participation by the judge.  Under Cobbs, at  
the request of a party the judge “may state on the record the  
length of sentence that, on the basis of the information then  
available to the judge, appears to be appropriate for the  
charged offense.”  443 Mich 283 (emphasis in original). We  
made 
clear, 
however, 
that this preliminary evaluation does not  
bind the judge’s sentencing discretion.  
III  
A  
The defendant makes two claims.  First, she asserts that  
a guilty plea is not constitutionally valid unless entered in  
a voluntary, knowing, and intelligent manner. She maintains  
that without knowing the sentence that the trial court will  
impose, her ratification of the earlier plea was not a knowing  
and intelligent one, since it is made without knowledge of the  
sentence to be imposed.  
This claim is easily disposed of. 
Someone in the  
position of defendant Williams, faced with the choice between  
withdrawing the plea and permitting it to stand without the  
limitations of the earlier Cobbs agreement, is in the same  
posture as a defendant who initially pleads guilty with no  
sentence understanding whatsoever.  No one would suggest that  
such pleas are invalid because the defendant does not know  
what the actual sentence will be.  
4  
 
 
 
  
 
B  
The defendant’s other argument is that the language  
quoted from Killebrew remains effective after Cobbs.3  Recall  
that Killebrew said that in announcing the decision not to  
follow the previously recommended sentence:  
[T]he 
trial 
judge 
must 
explain 
to 
the  
defendant that the recommendation was not accepted 
by the court, and state the sentence that the court 
finds to be the appropriate disposition. [416 Mich 
209.]  
Defendant reasons that Cobbs did not overrule Killebrew,  
but merely modified it to allow trial judges to participate in  
the plea negotiation process on a limited basis.  
We reject the defendant’s suggestion that the actual  
sentence to be imposed must be announced when the sentencing  
court informs the defendant that the Cobbs limits will not be  
observed. 
As our decisions in both Killebrew and Cobbs  
recognized, questions concerning the involvement of a trial  
court in plea and sentence negotiations are delicate ones that  
attempt to minimize the potential coercive effect of the  
judge’s participation, to retain the function of the judge as  
a neutral arbitrator, and to preserve public perception of the  
3 Defendant cites a series of Court of Appeals decisions 
before Cobbs enforcing that requirement.  People v McGuire, 
165 Mich App 198; 418 NW2d 427 (1987); People v Teed, 164 Mich 
App 540; 417 NW2d 495 (1987); People v Scott, 197 Mich App 28; 
494 NW2d 765 (1992).  
5  
 
judge as impartial. Killebrew, 416 Mich 201-205; Cobbs, 443  
Mich 284-285.  
In cases involving sentence recommendations under  
Killebrew, the neutrality of the judge is maintained because  
the recommendation is entirely the product of an agreement  
between the prosecutor and the defendant. 
The judge’s  
announcement 
that 
the recommendation will not be followed, and  
of the specific sentence that will be imposed if the defendant  
chooses to let the plea stand, is the first involvement of the  
court, and does not constitute bargaining with the defendant,  
since the judge makes that announcement and determination of  
the sentence on the judge’s own initiative after reviewing the  
presentence report.  
By contrast, the degree of the judge’s participation in  
a Cobbs plea is considerably greater, with the judge having  
made the initial assessment at the request of one of the  
parties, and with the defendant having made the decision to  
offer the plea in light of that assessment. 
In those  
circumstances, 
when 
the judge makes the determination that the  
sentence will not be in accord with the earlier assessment, to  
have the judge then specify a new sentence, which the  
defendant may accept or not, goes too far in involving the  
judge in the bargaining process.  Instead, when the judge  
determines that sentencing cannot be in accord with the  
previous assessment, that puts the previous understanding to  
6  
 
 
 
 
an end, and the defendant must choose to allow the plea to  
stand or not without benefit of any agreement regarding the  
sentence.  
Thus, we hold that in informing a defendant that the  
sentence will not be in accordance with the Cobbs agreement,  
the trial judge is not to specify the actual sentence that  
would be imposed if the plea is allowed to stand.  
Accordingly, the circuit court did not err in refusing to set  
aside the defendant’s plea, and the judgment of the circuit  
court is affirmed.  
CORRIGAN, C.J., and WEAVER, TAYLOR, YOUNG, and MARKMAN, JJ.,  
concurred.  
7  
 
 
___________________________________ 
 
 
 
v 
S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N  
SUPREME COURT  
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,  
Plaintiff-Appellee,  
No. 116535  
AVANA WILLIAMS,  
Defendant-Appellant.  
KELLY, J. (dissenting).  
I 
dissent 
from 
the majority opinion because it disregards  
settled precedent without a sound basis.  In reaching its  
holding, the majority misconstrues and distorts People v  
Killebrew,1 a well-reasoned decision that, for almost two  
decades, has mandated a result contrary to the one reached in  
this case. Because I regard full disclosure from the bench in  
a Cobbs2 setting an essential element of a knowing and  
1  416 Mich 189; 330 NW2d 834 (1982).  
2  People v Cobbs, 443 Mich 276; 505 NW2d 208 (1993).  
 
 
 
voluntary plea proceeding,3 I cannot join the majority's  
shrinking of an accused's constitutional right to a fair  
trial.  
Today's decision considerably weakens the effect of  
Killebrew on a defendant who makes a plea in reliance on a  
Cobbs 
agreement. 
Although 
the 
majority 
opinion 
avoids 
language  
expressly 
overruling Killebrew, it achieves the same result by  
making an illogical distinction between Killebrew and Cobbs  
pleas.  
The majority holds that a defendant who has made a Cobbs  
agreement is not entitled to know his sentence before  
determining 
whether 
to withdraw his guilty plea. In Killebrew,  
this Court on constitutional grounds expressly rejected  
placing a defendant at that disadvantage.  
In Killebrew, the defendant4 and the prosecutor entered  
into a plea agreement.  A dispute arose when it became  
apparent that the judge would not sentence the defendant to  
the 
agreed-upon 
term 
of imprisonment. We acknowledged that the  
judge retained discretion to sentence the defendant to any  
3  Forty years ago, we recognized that waiver of a trial 
cannot be knowing or voluntary when induced by reliance on 
agreed-to concessions by which one party no longer is bound. 
In re Valle, 364 Mich 471, 476; 110 NW2d 673 (1961).  
4  The individual referenced here is actually Jerome 
Briggs, the defendant in People v Briggs, a companion case to 
Killebrew.  
2  
 
 
lawful term. However, because the judge intended to increase  
the sentence earlier articulated, we held that constitutional  
principles required the judge to reveal the term of the final  
sentence to be pronounced. Then, the judge had to give the  
defendant the opportunity to withdraw or reaffirm the  
agreement to plead guilty.  
We explained the rationale underlying this rule:  
Technically, the defendant has not been  
promised a specific sentence. He may nonetheless 
tender his guilty plea, waiving his valuable right 
to trial.  
Although the prosecutorial "recommendation" 
would seem to inform the defendant of the  
consequences of his plea-
-
-that the prosecutor is 
merely suggesting a sentence and that the judge is 
not bound to follow the recommendation-
-
-the truth  
is that most defendants rely on the prosecutor's 
ability to secure the sentence when offering a  
guilty plea. This is true even when the court 
specifically admonishes the defendant that it is 
not bound by the prosecutor's recommendation. All 
disclaimers that the court is not bound are often  
viewed as ceremonial incantations. [Killebrew,  
supra at 208, citing State v Goodrich, 116 NH 477, 
479; 363 A2d 425 (1976); Alschuler, The trial  
judge's role in plea bargaining, part I, 76 Colum L  
R 1059, 1069 (1976).]  
When we decided Cobbs, a decade after Killebrew, we  
acknowledged that its effect was to add to the procedural  
landscape that Killebrew had established. 
It neither  
displaced it nor created a new landscape with a separate set  
of procedures. In Cobbs, we observed:  
In addition to the procedures approved in  
3  
 
 
 
Killebrew, . . . we today recognize an additional  
manner in which a judge may participate in sentence 
discussions. At the request of a party, and not on 
the judge's own initiative, a judge may state on  
the record the length of sentence that, on the 
basis of the information then available to the  
judge, appears to be appropriate for the charged 
offense. [Cobbs, supra at 283 (emphasis added).]  
The 
majority 
gives 
cursory 
treatment 
to 
defendant's 
first  
claim that her plea was not knowing and voluntary because it  
was 
offered 
without 
knowledge of the judge's sentencing plans.  
The majority disposes of it simply by opining that, once  
defendant learned of the judge's intention to disregard the  
Cobbs sentence, defendant was returned to her pre-plea  
position.  
However, the matter is not that simple.  Rather than  
contemplating whether to plead guilty, her pre-plea position,  
defendant was confronted with having to decide, under  
pressure, whether to withdraw her guilty plea.  She was no  
longer able to assess the decision knowing the length of her  
sentence, as before. 
Although she could have chosen to  
withdraw the plea, surely she felt increased pressure to let  
it stand and to take her chances that the increase in her  
sentence would be less than if she lost at trial.  
The majority attempts to distinguish a Cobbs plea from  
a Killebrew plea. It opines that a policy concern requires  
treating Killebrew and Cobbs defendants differently. 
The  
4  
 
 
policy is to minimize the potential coercive effects of a  
judge's participation in sentencing agreements. The majority  
concludes 
that 
the 
requirement sought by defendant would "[go]  
too far in involving the judge in the bargaining process" by  
creating the appearance of direct negotiations between the  
judge and defendant regarding the actual sentence to be  
imposed.  
The requirement sought by defendant is the same as has  
existed at least since the Cobbs decision in 1993.  The record  
reflects no problems resulting from increased negotiations  
between judges and criminal defendants since that date. The  
majority presents no reason to apply different rules to  
Killebrew than to Cobbs agreements.5  
For these reasons, I dissent and would reverse the trial  
court's judgment, remanding for appropriate proceedings.  
CAVANAGH, J., concurred with KELLY, J.  
5  A Killebrew plea agreement is made between the  
prosecutor 
and 
the 
defendant, 
without 
the 
judge's 
participation.  A Cobbs plea agreement is made between the 
prosecutor and the defendant, but it is based, in part, on the 
judge's pronouncement of a preliminary sentence estimate.  
5