Opinion ID: 2003476
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to correct trial court's misapprehension of material fact

Text: Defendant next argues that attorney Dotson rendered ineffective assistance of counsel where he failed to correct a misapprehension of material fact held by the trial court upon its denial of defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea: to wit, that defendant was aware of the plea offer's expiration date. It is uncontroverted that in August of 1990 the State negotiated a plea bargain with defendant's original attorney, Kenneth Gano, wherein the State agreed to recommend natural life in exchange for a plea of guilty. Moreover, attorney Gano was aware that this offer had an expiration date of Labor Day, after which date the plea bargain was no longer valid. On Labor Day weekend, Gano rejected the plea bargain on defendant's behalf and the matter proceeded to trial. When defendant subsequently entered a plea of guilty, he attempted to enforce the plea agreement and the State objected. After a hearing on the matter, the trial court denied the motion to enforce the plea agreement and the defendant nevertheless pled guilty. One of defendant's arguments in his motion to withdraw his guilty plea was that he entered a plea of guilty only because he believed that if he did so he would not be sentenced to death. On remand the trial court recollected that Janes had testified that he was aware of the time limit and denied the motion to withdraw the guilty plea on this ground. Defendant now argues that the record affirmatively shows that he did not know that the offer had a time limit. In support of his argument that attorney Dotson was ineffective in failing to correct this misapprehension on the part of the trial court, defendant cites the following testimony by defendant in his Motion to Enforce the Plea Agreement: Q. Did you accept that offer at that time? A. Um, I wanted to think about it. Q. And was the offer ever withdrawn? A. Not to my knowledge, no. Nobody ever come and just said it was just taken away. According to defendant, this is the only discussion of defendant's knowledge that the State's plea offer had a time limit and affirmatively shows that defendant was unaware that the offer was no longer on the table at the time he pled guilty. Thus he argues that he is entitled to a new hearing with competent counsel that will point out this portion of the record to the trial court. The State counters with more extensive citation to the hearing on defendant's motion to enforce the plea agreement. In its entirety, the transcript of the hearing evidences that the trial court concluded that defendant knew about the expiration of the plea offer after carefully weighing the evidence presented at the hearing. Defendant testified, as did the prosecutor who negotiated the plea bargain with attorney Gano. While the prosecutor could not testify as to defendant's knowledge of the expiration date, he did affirmatively state that Gano was aware of it and, moreover, that Gano had called him over the Labor Day weekend and explicitly rejected the offer on defendant's behalf. In concluding that defendant was aware of the offer's expiration date, the trial court noted that it was the State which had subpoenaed Gano, who refused to testify as to what he told the defendant on attorney-client privilege grounds. Notwithstanding Gano's presence in the courtroom, defendant did not call Gano to the stand and waive the privilege so that Gano could testify as to whether he told defendant that the plea agreement had an expiration date. From this the trial court concluded that Gano's testimony would likely have evidenced that defendant knew about the expiration date. Considering this and all the other testimony at the hearing, the trial court denied the motion to enforce the otherwise expired plea agreement. The trial court is in the best position to weigh evidence and reach conclusions thereupon. Here the trial court's conclusion that defendant knew of the expiration date is entirely reasonable and thus will not be disturbed by this court on review. The trial court considered the testimony now proffered by the defendant in the context of the entire hearing on the matter of defendant's knowledge and at that time concluded that defendant was aware of the expiration date of the plea agreement. Accordingly, attorney Dotson did not render ineffective assistance of counsel when he failed to apprise the trial court of the language defendant now claims shows that he did not know of the expiration date.