Opinion ID: 2376095
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Appellant's Motion to Withdraw His Plea

Text: At the sentencing hearing two months later, appellant told the court that he had not murdered Carl Johnson. The court stopped the hearing, then appointed new counsel and directed him to file a motion to withdraw the guilty plea. He did so, and the government filed an opposition. Appellant himself also sent the court a letter claiming that his former counsel had ignored his statement that he was not responsible for Mr. Johnson's death. At the hearing on appellant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, the government called appellant's former counsel, Christopher Swaby of the Public Defender Service, as a witness. [1] Mr. Swaby testified that he had explained the plea agreement to appellant, and that appellant gave no indication that he had not killed Carl Johnson. Mr. Swaby acknowledged that he had told appellant that the court would not accept the plea agreement if he denied killing Johnson, but he said that he also instructed appellant to tell the truth. Moreover, Mr. Swaby stated, I would not have allowed him [appellant] to take the plea if he had told me that he had not killed Carl Johnson. [2] Appellant testified on his own behalf, reiterating the claims he had made in his letter to the judge. He said that he had not killed Carl Johnson, that he had so informed Mr. Swaby before entering the guilty plea, and that he did not realize that he had pleaded guilty to murdering Johnson until shortly before the sentencing hearing. The prosecutor then offered his theory that appellant showed doubt during the plea hearing about whether he murdered Carl Johnson because he was thinking about implicating his cousin, Aaron Crowder. The basis for this conjecture was that, before initially denying the murder of Mr. Johnson, appellant looked toward the back of the courtroom where several of his family members were seated. The prosecutor surmised that appellant refrained from blaming Crowder when he saw Crowder's motherhis own auntin the courtroom. The court, crediting Mr. Swaby's testimony over appellant's, denied the motion to withdraw the guilty plea, specifically finding appellant's assertions of innocence to be incredible. The court also stated that the two-month delay in contesting his guilty plea had prejudiced the government and weighed against granting the motion. Finally, after noting that appellant had not made a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the court ruled that in any event he had been represented by competent counsela succession of experienced lawyers from the Public Defender Service throughout the proceedings up to and including the guilty plea. Based on all of those factors, the court found as a fact that Mr. Maske, contrary to his testimony today, but consistent with his testimony [at the plea proceeding], shot and stabbed Carl Johnson to death. Four weeks later, the court sentenced appellant to thirty years to life on the first-degree murder charge, twenty years to life on the second-degree murder charge, and forty months to ten years on the assault charge. All the sentences were ordered to run consecutively.