Opinion ID: 301247
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: DISCRETION OF THE DISTRICT COURT UNDER FED.R.CRIM.P. 11 and 32(d)

Text: Rule 11, in pertinent part, provides: 5 The court may refuse to accept a plea of guilty, and shall not accept such plea or a plea of nolo contendere without first addressing the defendant personally and determining that the plea is made voluntarily with understanding of the nature of the charge and the consequences of the plea.    The court shall not enter a judgment upon a plea of guilty unless it is satisfied that there is a factual basis for the plea. 6 Withdrawal of a plea of guilty is permitted under Rule 32(d): 7 A motion to withdraw a plea of guilty or of nolo contendere may be made only before sentence is imposed or imposition of sentence is suspended; but to correct manifest injustice the court after sentence may set aside the judgment of conviction and permit the defendant to withdraw his plea. 8 The unquestioned standard for permitting withdrawal of a guilty plea, unequivocally stated by Judge (now Chief Justice) Burger: 9 Overwhelming authority holds, as has this court, that withdrawal of a guilty plea before sentencing is not an absolute right but a decision within the sound discretion of the trial court which will be reversed by an appellate court only for an abuse of that discretion. 2 10 Hence, the issue on this appeal is whether the trial judge abused her discretion. 11 Abuse of discretion has been defined by this court and the Supreme Court as action which is arbitrary, fanciful, or clearly unreasonable. 3 Compare the application of the standard in Everett: 12 The record reveals a guilty plea, intelligently and voluntarily made with assistance of retained counsel and candid admission of all essential elements of the crime in open court; this is hardly a predicate for an appellate holding that the District Judge abused his discretion in refusing to permit a withdrawal. We are not disposed to encourage accused persons to play games with the courts at the expense of already overburdened calendars and the rights of other accused persons awaiting trial,   . 4 13 We consider the requirements of Rule 11 are met when the trial court is satisfied after interrogation of the defendant personally that he understands the direct consequences of the plea. The trial court is not required later on motion to withdraw the plea to consider possible ancillary or consequential results which are peculiar to the individual and which may flow from a conviction on a plea of guilty, although of course such consequences, if known, might be evaluated by the trial judge in assessing punishment. Fed.R.Crim.P. 32(a) (1). 14 The trial judge may well have considered, as we do, that appellant's asserted claim that he did not understand English well enough to evaluate the consequences of his plea is not supported by the record. His counsel stated that appellant is now employed as an optical technician, is in this country on a permanent visa   , which indicates that he is regularly employed in a business requiring some command and understanding of English. 15 Nor did his awareness of a relationship between a criminal conviction and deportation originate after his plea of guilty. His counsel stated to the court, Mr. Sambro and I at this time [of the plea of guilty] thought that it was possible for Your Honor to suspend sentence, put the defendant on probation, without him being deported, since he is a citizen of Argentina. This indicates clearly that far from the appellant's being confused by a poor command of English and not having considered deportation, he and his counsel both had considered the possibility of deportation as a result of conviction on this plea of guilty, and had reached an erroneous conclusion as to the legal effect. 16 We note that here the District Court imposed no immediate prison term, only four years' probation. Since appellant is an alien, the net result will be immediate deportation without serving either a prison term or four years' probation. We also observe that the Government was willing to accept a plea to one of the heroin, not marijuana, counts of the 12-count indictment, thus evidencing some confidence in the strength of its case if the matter came to trial. We do not see that the appellant was unfairly or unjustly treated in these circumstances, or that the interests of justice would be best served by remanding the case for trial on the 12-count narcotics indictment. 17