Opinion ID: 658590
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Voluntariness of the Guilty and Alford Pleas

Text: 15 The petitioner's final argument is that we should allow him to withdraw his pleas because they were not knowing and voluntary. He advances two reasons to support his argument: 1) the trial court failed to advise him of each element of the various offenses, and 2) he was promised a sentence of 75 years if he pled guilty. The second claim bears little or no scrutiny. First, as we discussed above, the petitioner has failed to show that any alleged promise of a 75 year sentence affected his decision to plead guilty. Furthermore, he testified in open court that nobody promised him anything in order to encourage him to plead a certain way. 16 The remaining argument that the pleas were involuntary because the court never explained the elements of the offenses is not supported by the law or the facts. The Supreme Court has held that to satisfy due process a plea can be voluntary only if the accused received 'real notice of the true nature of the charges against him....'  Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637, 645, 96 S.Ct. 2253, 2257, 49 L.Ed.2d 108 (1976) (quoting Smith v. O'Grady, 312 U.S. 329, 334, 61 S.Ct. 572, 574, 85 L.Ed. 859 (1941)). The petitioner seeks to impose a greater requirement by arguing that giving real notice always requires the court to describe each element of the offense. In Henderson, the Court declined to decide whether notice of the true nature, or substance, of a charge always requires a description of every element of the offense. 426 U.S. at 647 n. 18, 96 S.Ct. at 2258 n. 18. It assumed for the purposes of its analysis, however, that no such requirement existed. Id. In that case the trial judge never explained that intent was an element of the offense of second-degree murder, or that the defendant's plea would be an admission of that fact. Id. at 646, 96 S.Ct. at 2258. The Court concluded that because intent is such a critical element of the offense of second-degree murder[,] notice of that element is required. Id. at 647 n. 18, 96 S.Ct. at 2258 n. 18. 17 The petitioner in the present case makes no claim that any particular, critical element was excluded from the description of the charges, or how the lack of such an element deprived him of real notice of the substance of the offenses. If he had, we believe, based on the record, that such a contention would fail. The trial judge carefully read each of the charges and the factual bases for them, which included very detailed, complete information about every offense. We find that the description of the charges provided to Harvey set forth the elements of the various offenses in a manner sufficient to provide the petitioner with the constitutionally required notice of the nature of the charges against him. 7 Furthermore, petitioner's attorney explained each element of the offense to him in very detailed fashion. 8 Finally, the petitioner himself admitted that he knew the crimes and charges to which he was pleading. For these reasons we hold that the petitioner did receive real notice of the nature of the charges to which he pled and his pleas comported with the requirements of due process.