Opinion ID: 1805641
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendant's Understanding of the Elements of the Crime Charged

Text: In a statement petitioner gave to the police on July 20, 1957, 22 days after the alleged crime, he admitted attacking a young woman as she got out of her car in the early hours of the morning in a residential area of Duluth. He said that when the victim had approached to within 5 or 6 feet of her front porch he leaped from his hiding place in the bushes adjoining the porch and struck her three or four times on the head with a flashlight. He said he pulled her to the ground, started molesting her, and asked her if he could have sexual intercourse with her. According to his statement she said yes. Petitioner now maintains that he pleaded guilty to a crime which he did not realize required an absence of consent on the part of the victim. He claims that he would not have pleaded guilty had he been fully apprised of the elements of rape since, as his statement asserts, he received the victim's consent for at least part of his unlawful acts. We note that the record of the arraignment hearing showsand petitioner admitted at the postconviction hearingthat the clerk read the information to the petitioner and his attorney. Petitioner also was supplied with a copy of it. [1] The information charged, in part, that petitioner did wrongfully, unlawfully, wilfully and feloniously have sexual intercourse, with [the victim], against her will and without her consent. Petitioner admitted that at the time of the arraignment he understood he had a right to enter a plea of not guilty and to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury; that when a jury goes out in any case it has to come back unanimous; that he could get a sentence of 30 years for rape; that the judge refused to make any promises; that no one forced him to plead guilty; and that no one made a deal or bargain with him. At the postconviction hearing, petitioner was not always consistent in his testimony concerning his understanding of the elements of rape, but at one point he said: I thought that I was guilty ofof hitting this girlthis lady, assaulting her and having relations, intercourse with her and with her permission. At the postconviction hearing petitioner's trial counsel was asked whether he had any recollection of discussing the elements of the crime of rape with the defendant on the day of the arraignment. He answered: Well, I am sure I had discussed it long before that, or I wouldn't have gotten that far. He was asked, in addition, whether petitioner ever contradicted the statement (the claim that the victim consented). He responded by indicating that he couldn't remember specifically what happened, but also testified: I will answer you this way. I wouldn't have let him plead guilty if he hadn't contradicted that statement. While the trial court's method of handling the plea did not include the deliberate recitation of the elements of the crime which is expected in present procedure, it certainly met the standards accepted at the time petitioner entered his plea [2] and left him, in our opinion, with an understanding in fact of the crime with which he was charged. Moreover, even if we were to assume, as petitioner urges, that the victim complied with his requests after he had assaulted her, there would still be an absence of evidence of legal consent under the circumstances disclosed by the record. We said in the first paragraph of the syllabus to Knisley v. State, Minn., 172 N.W. 2d 769, 770: Statement of appellant concurrent with acceptance of his plea of guilty to the crime of indecent assault that some of female victim's conduct was voluntary after she was shown a knife would not be evidence of express consent within the meaning of Minn.St.1961, § 617.08, and there was no error in refusing to vacate the plea.