Court Opinion

ID: 9672764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:59:51.853981+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:18.203885
License: Public Domain

UHLENHOPP, Justice
(dissenting).
I think that Ridinger should have a post-conviction hearing.
The validity of a guilty plea is involved. A guilty plea comes from the accused and must be voluntary. Hence a material question is, what induced the accused to plead guilty and give up his right to trial? Stovall v. State, 340 N.W.2d 265, 267 (Iowa 1983) (“material in the sense that it is part of the inducement for the defendant’s decision to plead guilty”). When an accused is offered an inducement in a plea bargain, the question is therefore what he understood the inducement was (if his understanding is within the realm of reason), for the ultimate issue is whether the plea was voluntary on the part of the accused. A plea bargain is thus different from an ordinary commercial contract.
Here Ridinger’s claim that a recommendation of reconsideration meant a positive recommendation is within the realm of reason. The first definition of “reconsider” in *738Webster is “a: to think over, discuss, or debate (as a plan, decision) esp. with a view to changing or reversing_” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1969) (emphasis added). The question, therefore, is whether Ridinger understood a recommendation of reconsideration to mean a positive recommendation, when he accepted the bargain. His understanding of the bargain can be ascertained by consideration of all the evidence at the hearing, in the way state of mind is usually ascertained.
If Ridinger did not understand that the State would make a positive recommendation of reconsideration, then he has no complaint and his guilty plea should stand. On the contrary if Ridinger understood that the bargain meant the State would recommend reconsideration positively, then he should be allowed to plead 'anew, as the State did not so recommend but instead produced evidence in opposition to his release from prison. Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971). If Ridinger thus pleads anew, pleads not guilty, and is convicted at trial, he cannot justifiably claim he is in prison because the State did not carry out a plea bargain.
I would reverse the judgment and direct that a hearing be held regarding the validity of the guilty plea.
HARRIS, McCORMICK and LARSON, JJ., join in this dissent.