Court Opinion

ID: 9672844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:01:38.533859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:18.736107
License: Public Domain

DONNELLY, Judge
(concurring).
I would note that, in my view, the duty of the trial court, when accepting a plea of guilty, is greater when defendant is without counsel. State v. Gee, Mo.Sup., 408 S.W.2d 1, 3.
However, in State v. Carter, Mo.Sup., 399 S.W.2d 74, 77, Division Two of the Court held that a defendant “may waive his right to counsel and enter a plea of guilty when he does so with an intelligent understanding of his act.” Further, in State v. Goff, Mo.Sup., 449 S.W.2d 591, this Court en Banc held that a fifteen-year-old defendant may waive counsel.
The trial court, after an evidentiary hearing, found that upon being offered “both an attorney and a trial by jury the petitioner voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived such rights.” I cannot say that such findings are clearly erroneous. In State v. Sayre, Mo.Sup., 420 S.W.2d 303, 305, Division Two of this Court said: “If it be found on the hearing on the motion to vacate the sentence, notwithstanding the insufficiency of the record at the time the plea was accepted, that the plea of guilty was in fact voluntary and was made with an understanding of the nature of the charge, then no manifest injustice could have resulted.”
I concur.