Opinion ID: 1469394
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Defendant Brann's Claims of Error

Text: The defendant Brann also filed a notice of appeal from his conviction and urges us that he was in effect coerced into his withdrawing his plea of not guilty and entering a plea of guilty by the Justice's order of consolidation of his case with Staples and Staples' subsequent departure from their trial. The record demonstrates that the presiding Justice carefully examined the defendant Brann as to the voluntariness of his plea and no indication that it was not completely voluntary is apparent. We examined the effective area of review on direct appeal from a conviction resulting from a plea of guilty in Dow v. State, Me., 275 A.2d 815, 820 (1971) and concluded that a direct appeal based upon involuntariness of a plea of guilty lies only upon denial at the trial court level of a timely motion to withdraw the plea. No such foundation for an appeal is present here. The entries will be: The defendant Staples' appeal is denied. The defendant Brann's appeal is dismissed. DELAHANTY, J., did not sit.