Court Opinion

ID: 9541404
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:25:07.133173+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:49.389010
License: Public Domain

*379CIRILLO, Judge,
dissenting:
There are two standards for the court to use in deciding whether to allow a defendant to withdraw his or her guilty plea. The court’s determination of which standard to use depends on whether the request for withdrawal of the plea was prior to sentence or after the sentence.
Pennsylvania case law states that pre-sentence requests for withdrawal should be “liberally allowed” in light of the gravity of the plea and the defendant’s waiver of numerous rights. Pre-sentence withdrawal should be permitted for any “fair and just” reason unless the prosecution has suffered substantial prejudice. Commonwealth v. Hayes, 462 Pa. 291, 341 A.2d 85 (1975). The stricter post-sentence standard states that there must be “manifest injustice” towards the defendant before the court will permit withdrawal of the plea. This distinction is the basis for the majority’s decision in this case, that is, whether the guilty plea was withdrawn before or after sentencing. The presentence and post-sentence distinction, however, is marginal in that it fails to account for a substantial prejudice towards the Commonwealth that occurs in both pre- and post-sentencing, judge shopping.
Judge-shopping by means of a guilty plea is a practice used by defense attorneys whereby the attorney will instruct his client to plead guilty in front of a judge if the attorney does not want that judge to try his client’s case or if a continuance is denied, as in this case. Either before or after sentence, the defendant will request to withdraw his plea. If the request is granted, the defendant’s attorney will ask the judge who heard the guilty plea to recuse himself because of the prejudicial information that the judge heard in the defendant’s guilty plea. The judge should and almost always will honor this request. Commonwealth v. Goodman, 454 Pa. 358, 311 A.2d 652 (1973). The defense attorney, therefore, has effectively eliminated the judge from further proceedings in the hope of getting a more lenient judge.
*380In Commonwealth v. McLaughlin, 469 Pa. 407, 366 A.2d 238 (1976), the prosecution argued that it would be substantially prejudiced if the defendant were permitted to withdraw his guilty plea because the witnesses at the guilty plea might refuse to testify at a trial. The court responded to this argument by stating that the possibility of the witnesses refusing to testify at trial was only speculation and the prosecution was not substantially prejudiced. One could argue that a court would be speculating and thus (the Commonwealth is) not substantially prejudiced if the court refused to allow withdrawal of a guilty plea because it believed that the defense attorney was judge-shopping. However, the facts of this case illustrate the belief that judge-shopping is more than speculation.
The defendant’s attorney came before Judge Caldwell and asked for a continuance because he felt that his client was incompetent to stand trial. A continuance, if granted, would postpone the case to a later term and a judge would be randomly selected to hear the proceedings. The defendant, thus, would have a good chance of having another judge hear his case. However, a psychiatrist testified that the defendant was competent, and Judge Caldwell denied the continuance. The defendant then pled guilty before Judge Caldwell. The Judge heard the plea (and conducted a guilty plea colloquy) and found that the defendant entered his plea knowingly and voluntarily. It is apparent that the defendant (with an overwhelming amount of evidence against him) attempted to withdraw his plea in an attempt to remove Judge Caldwell from the case. If the withdrawal is granted, Judge Caldwell should recuse himself from trial because hearing the defendant’s guilty plea would be sufficient to prejudice the defendant. The defendant does not have to demonstrate that the guilty plea would actually influence the judge as long as it is sufficient to give rise to prejudice. Commonwealth v. Goodman, 454 Pa. 358, 311 A.2d 652 (1973). Thus, the defendant has attempted, through a request for a continuance, a guilty plea and then a request for a withdrawal of the guilty plea, to judge-shop. Although *381the defendant must still stand trial, the majority’s decision to grant the withdrawal substantially prejudices the Commonwealth and destroys one of the most important purposes behind random judge selection.
If the defendant is permitted to withdraw his plea, he should not be permitted to take the stand and deny his guilt under oath since he already admitted his guilt under oath. Also, his lawyer should not be permitted to call witnesses to contradict the defendant’s admission under oath for such conduct would be unethical. Any claim of privilege of attorney-client relationship is waived by the defendant’s admission in open court, under oath, of his guilt. The court can envision occasions where the above rule can be set aside because of misunderstanding, duress, or the admission not having been intelligently and voluntarily made; but in those cases, the burden would be on the defendant to fall within the exception of the rule. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.