Opinion ID: 1159607
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Subsequent advisement

Text: Finally, petitioner argues that any harm caused by the trial court's 1992 misadvisements was corrected when defendant, in the course of the 1997 prosecution, signed an accurate plea and waiver form stating he had violated his 1992 probation. Without authority, petitioner asserts that the 1997 form corrects, nunc pro tunc, any error in the original advisements. Petitioner's retroactive correction theory cannot be reconciled with section 1016.5 itself. It was the intent of the Legislature in enacting section 1016.5 to promote fairness to criminally accused noncitizens by requiring in such cases that acceptance of a guilty plea or plea of nolo contendere be preceded by an appropriate warning of the special consequences for such a defendant which may result from the plea. (§ 1016.5, subd. (d), italics added.) This purpose logically cannot be served and, in fact, would be thwarted, by a rule permitting after-the-fact warnings. Such a rule also would undermine the Legislature's expressed intention that the court in such cases shall grant the defendant a reasonable amount of time to negotiate with the prosecuting agency in the event the defendant or the defendant's counsel was unaware of the possibility of deportation, exclusion from admission to the United States, or denial of naturalization as a result of conviction. ( Ibid. ) Obviously, advisements at the time of a subsequent probation violation would not afford a defendant an opportunity to negotiate the terms of his original conviction. Most fundamentally, as discussed, our Legislature expressly sought to address in section 1016.5 the problem of a defendant entering a plea of guilty or nolo contendere without knowing about its potential adverse immigration consequences. (§ 1016.5, subd. (d).) The evil targeted, thus, is not simply a defendant's lack of knowledge, but his or her lack of knowledge at a specified critical juncture. Such an evil cannot be corrected by provision of the required information after the critical juncture has passed. (Cf. In re Martinez (1959) 52 Cal.2d 808, 814, 345 P.2d 449 [advisement of right to counsel meant to ensure defendant is aware at the time he pleads guilty].) To conclude otherwise would undermine any prophylactic effect the statute might have. Hence, the trial court did not err in rejecting petitioner's theory of subsequent correction of the partial advisements.