Court Opinion

ID: 9716964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:55:01.853871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:50.354810
License: Public Domain

KENNETH W. SHRUM, J,
concurring.
I concur. I write separately to emphasize that a factual basis for the guilty plea must exist before the court enters a judgment upon the plea. Price v. State, 137 S.W.3d 538, 542 (Mo.App.2004). Nothing in Rule 24.02(e) “requires that a factual basis be established before a guilty plea is accepted.” Id. Obviously, “[t]he ideal method to establish a factual basis would be via a colloquy between the court and the defendant.” Id. at n. 4. Certainly, the guilty plea hearing would provide such an ideal venue, but this is not required by the rule.
When the plea court relies on matters outside the plea hearing to establish a factual basis, the court should specifically point to the matters it relies upon that are contained in the record. Id. In the case sub judice, the plea court was allowed to rely on matters such as probable cause affidavits, but only when they were contained the record. They were not; consequently, when the majority opinion relies upon Jones, it does so because the only record made was that of the guilty plea hearing. As stated by the majority, nothing in this opinion should be read as contradictory to that stated in Price.