Opinion ID: 2821964
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: facts

Text: ¶3 In 1993, Mr. Winward was charged with sodomizing his girlfriend’s sons repeatedly over the course of four years and with sexually assaulting a neighbor’s child. See State v. Winward, 941 P.2d 627, 629 (Utah Ct. App. 1997). His first trial ended in a hung jury. He was tried again and convicted, and his conviction was affirmed by the court of appeals. Id. at 636. ¶4 In 2009, Mr. Winward filed a petition for post-conviction relief claiming his counsel had been ineffective in a number of ways, including failing to inform him about a plea bargain the State allegedly offered before the second trial. In response the State argued that Winward’s petition was more than a decade late and therefore ought to be dismissed under the PCRA’s time bar. The district court agreed, and Mr. Winward appealed. ¶5 We affirmed the dismissal of most of Mr. Winward’s claims. Winward v. State, 2012 UT 85, ¶ 28, 293 P.3d 259. But before we could issue our decision, the legal landscape changed. The U.S. Supreme Court decided Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye, which established a remedy for defendants who fail to accept a plea offer because of the ineffective assistance of counsel, and who ultimately receive a stricter sentence than was offered under the plea bargain. Lafler v. Cooper, 132 S. Ct. 1376 (2012); Missouri v. Frye, 132 S. Ct. 1399 (2012). Because the PCRA recognizes a cause of action based on new Supreme Court decisions, and because Mr. Winward seemed to have alleged facts that might support relief under Lafler and Frye, we remanded the case to allow Mr. Winward to pursue a claim based on these decisions. Winward, 2012 UT 85, ¶ 36. ¶6 Mr. Winward did so, and the State again asked the district court to dismiss his claim under rule 12(b)(6). It gave two reasons for dismissal. First, it argued that Lafler and Frye do not satisfy the requirements to create a new cause of action under the PCRA because they were not dictated by precedent when Mr. Winward’s conviction became final in 1997. Second, it argued that even if the PCRA did allow Mr. Winward to raise a claim under Lafler and Frye, he had failed to 2 Cite as: 2015 UT 61 Opinion of the Court allege facts sufficient to state such a claim. The court agreed with the State’s first argument and dismissed Winward’s claim “because no set of facts that he could prove would entitle him to relief.” It did not reach the State’s second argument. ¶7 Mr. Winward now appeals again, arguing that the district court erred and that he is entitled to relief under Lafler and Frye. He also raises other arguments, which we will not consider for reasons explained in Part III below.