Opinion ID: 1467862
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: speculation and the nature of mixed questions

Text: Both parties argued on appeal that the acceptance or rejection of a plea agreement involves mixed questions of law and fact and, therefore, since questions of law are involved, albeit they may be mixed, participation by the assistant judges is prohibited by State v. Dunkerley, supra . The majority rejects this argument on the grounds, as I understand the opinion, that, in this case at least, there was no question of law (pure or mixed) to be resolved in the acceptance process; it was entirely a matter of nonlegal discretion of the kind any layman might exercise. In addition to my view discussed above, that all judicial discretion involves the application of legal standards and principles, I have two objections to the majority's argument. At the outset, it is an unsupported conclusion. The majority simply assumes that preliminary evidentiary rulings cleared the way for a pure act of discretion; no question of law could possibly remain. This is naked speculation, nothing more. Appellate courts are, necessarily, tied to the record transmitted from the lower court. They cannot make findings of factindeed if the findings below are inadequate the judgment must be reversednor can they speculate outside of the record as to what happened or did not happen, or what was raised or not raised, below. Nevertheless, that is exactly what the majority has done. The opinion is really saying that the majority cannot visualize any question of law (pure or mixed) which might have arisen and been resolved at the in camera confidential discussion between the judges when they acted on the agreement. There is no transcript of these discussions, nothing; a void which the majority fills by speculating when the true situation is that we do not know. Therefore, I believe there is no basis for concluding that the decks had been cleared for a pure discretionary action. [2] Secondly, I believe the majority fails to understand the nature of mixed questions of law and fact. They are not like apples and oranges mixed together in a basket, each unit of which may be identified as one or the other and separated out. A mixed question is analogous to a crossbred animal. In the latter instance there is but one animal, not two. In the former there is but one question, although it contains elements of law and elements of fact. That, I think, is what the parties are arguing, and they are right. Quite apart from the nature of judicial discretion itself, when the question before the court was whether to accept or reject the agreement, that question in itself was an inseparable mixture of the standards and principles of law to be applied to the fact of the proposed agreement and other surrounding facts. Therefore, the fact that the ruling was discretionary is immaterial. The ruling embraced a question of law; therefore, the action of the assistant judges was beyond their jurisdiction. In view of the above discussion I think it is clear that in overruling the presiding judge and rejecting the plea agreement, the assistant judges exceeded their powers. In doing so, the defendant's fundamental right to due process has been violated. This is not a case of first impression; it is a clear progeny of Dunkerley, and the result is contrary to the constitutional protections defined in that case. II.