Opinion ID: 2640798
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: we lack jurisdiction to consider ms. rhinehart's challenge to the lawfulness of her guilty plea

Text: ¶ 10 The Utah Constitution mandates that all criminal defendants be afforded the right of appeal. Utah Const. art. I, § 12; see Manning v. State, 2005 UT 61, ¶ 26, 122 P.3d 628. Moreover, a defendant who has `been prevented in some meaningful way from proceeding' with a direct appeal of right is likely to have been denied the due process of law guaranteed in article I, section 7. Manning, 2005 UT 61, ¶ 26, 122 P.3d 628 (quoting State v. Penman, 964 P.2d 1157, 1166 (Utah Ct.App.1998)). ¶ 11 Ms. Rhinehart contends that the ineffectiveness of her trial counsel caused her to enter her plea and to fail to bring a timely motion to withdraw it. Under these circumstances, Ms. Rhinehart insists, the requirement contained in section 77-13-6 that she move to withdraw her guilty plea as a condition to challenging her plea on direct appeal unconstitutionally deprives her of her right to appeal. ¶ 12 Mindful that in State v. Merrill, 2005 UT 34, 114 P.3d 585, we settled the question of whether section 77-13-6 was jurisdictional and constitutional by answering yes to both inquiries, Ms. Rhinehart has nevertheless labored to set herself, her circumstances, and her legal claims apart from those present in Merrill. See also Grimmett v. State, 2007 UT 11, ¶ 8, 152 P.3d 306 (confirming the constitutional and jurisdictional nature of the statute that experienced a substantial revision from the version in Merrill ). She argues that we should now answer no to the two Merrill questions because it was her lawyer's fault that she entered her plea and failed to bring a timely motion to withdraw it. According to Ms. Rhinehart, neither Merrill nor any of our other pronouncements on section 77-13-6 confronted a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. She claims that this distinction matters. ¶ 13 It does not. The ineffectiveness of a defendant's counsel may take many forms and result in relieving a criminal defendant of an undesirable result. The ineffectiveness of counsel that contributes to a flawed guilty plea, however, can spare a defendant the consequences of her plea only if the defendant makes out the same case required of every defendant who seeks to withdraw a plea: that the plea was not knowing and voluntary. See State v. West, 765 P.2d 891, 896 (Utah 1988) (remanding the case to determine whether the defendant's original plea was knowing and voluntary where the facts suggest that the defendant received nothing in return for his guilty plea and apparently received seriously deficient information from all persons involved in his case). As a practical matter, there is no alleged flaw in a guilty plea of a defendant represented by counsel that could not be attributed in some way to deficient representation. Examples abound in our cases, but a review confined only to the cases cited by Ms. Rhinehart, as illustrative of appeals that did not involve claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, provides sufficient evidence to defend this point. Mr. Merrill filed a late motion to withdraw his plea because he did not discover until too late the effect the psychotropic medicine he was taking may have had on his ability to enter a knowing and voluntary plea. Merrill, 2005 UT 34, ¶ 9, 114 P.3d 585. In State v. Reyes, 2002 UT 13, 40 P.3d 630, Mr. Reyes claimed that the trial court committed plain error when it failed to strictly comply with rule 11 of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure. Id. ¶ 3. The defendant in State v. Mullins, 2005 UT 43, 116 P.3d 374, pointed to duress and his counsel's misrepresentation of critical aspects of the plea agreement as grounds for his motion to withdraw his plea. Id. ¶ 3. Each of these cases could easily have been recast as claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and, presumably, have been pursued under rule 23B of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure as Ms. Rhinehart seeks to do here. ¶ 14 The classification within which she seeks refuge  that defendants who seek leave to withdraw pleas based on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are free of the constraints of section 77-13-6  is, therefore, a phantom classification. To honor this classification would be to invite every tardy application to withdraw a plea to be styled as a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a consequence that would vitiate section 77-13-6. We therefore hold that claims of ineffective assistance of counsel raised in the context of challenges to the lawfulness of guilty pleas are governed by section 77-13-6 as construed by Merrill and confirmed by Grimmett. We therefore are without jurisdiction to consider Ms. Rhinehart's claim.