Opinion ID: 2433485
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rejecting Guilty Plea

Text: Nicklasson assigns error to the trial court's decision to reject his attempted guilty plea at his arraignment. The trial court refused the proffered plea. These additional facts assist in understanding this issue: The state charged Nicklasson with first degree murder on September 1, 1994. On November 10, 1994, the associate division of the Circuit Court of Lafayette County conducted a preliminary hearing the result of which was a decision to bind Nicklasson over to the circuit division of the court on the charge of first degree murder. On November 15, 1994, the state filed an information charging Nicklasson with first degree murder and, on November 21, the trial court arraigned Nicklasson on the first degree murder charge. The state had not yet filed a notice of aggravating circumstances. Realizing this, and believing that a guilty plea entered prior to the filing of aggravating circumstances would avoid the possibility of a death sentence, Nicklasson tried to pretermit the process and secure a life sentence without possibility of parole by pleading guilty at the arraignment. The trial court refused to accept the guilty plea, indicating that the state still had time to decide whether it would seek the death penalty under section 565.005.1(1), RSMo 1994. That statute permits the state to file a list of aggravating circumstances within a reasonable time before the commencement of the first stage of any trial of murder in the first degree at which the death penalty is not waived. (Emphasis added.) The state filed notice of aggravating circumstances on November 29, 1994. Nicklasson's trial did not begin until April 22, 1996. The state filed its notice of aggravating circumstances within a reasonable time prior to the commencement of trial. Nevertheless, Nicklasson claims that he has a constitutional right to plead guilty at any stage of the proceedings. Reduced to its convoluted essence, Nicklasson asserts: that Missouri recognizes the right to plead guilty; that once such a right is recognized, it must be administered in accordance with due process; that the trial court's refusal to accept the proffered plea at the arraignment violated due process; and that Nicklasson has a right to a remand in this case to plead guilty under the circumstances that existed on November 21, 1994. Nicklasson cites no authority directly supporting his argument. Nicklasson's argument is incorrect for two reasons. First, due process does not require the trial court to accept a guilty plea in a case that carries the potential for the death penalty until such time as the state has determined both the crime with which the defendant is charged and the extent of the punishment the state will seek. Indeed, section 565.005.1(1) requires an affirmative act by the state to waive the death penalty. Thus, the statutory presumption is that where first degree murder is charged, the death penalty is an option until that punishment is affirmatively waived by the state. Of course, due process requires the state to make its punishment decision within a reasonable time prior to trial to give the defendant notice of the charges and aggravating circumstances against which he must prepare a defense. The eighty-two days the state took from filing the initial charge to filing its list of aggravating circumstances did not violate due process. This is because the trial did not occur until eighteen months after Nicklasson received notice of the state's list of aggravating circumstances. For these reasons, we believe the statement in North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 38, n. 11, 91 S.Ct. 160, 167-68, n. 11, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970), that [a] criminal defendant does not have an absolute right under the Constitution to have his guilty plea accepted by the court extends to a case in which the state has not made a final decision to seek or waive the death penalty when the defendant attempts to enter a guilty plea. Second, and more important, Nicklasson misreads section 565.005.1(1). As previously stated, section 565.005.1(1) requires an affirmative act by the state waiving the death penalty. Were we to remand this case to permit Nicklasson to plead guilty as things stood on November 21, 1994, the guilty plea would operate as Nicklasson's waiver of notice of aggravating circumstances and a willingness to accept the possibility of a death sentence. This is because the state had not affirmatively waived the death penalty as section 565.005.1(1) requires. We doubt Nicklasson seeks this result. In any event, the trial court did not err in refusing the profferred guilty plea. The point is denied.