Court Opinion

ID: 9612802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:11:23.406863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:23.150177
License: Public Domain

ROVIRA, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
The majority holds today that an attorney’s failure to inform his client of the possible deportation consequences of a guilty plea may constitute ineffective assistance of counsel and thus render the plea involuntary. By casting its analysis in terms of the effectiveness of counsel and focusing on the severity of a collateral consequence of a guilty plea, the majority loses sight of the nature of the right at issue. I believe that the defendant’s guilty pleas are not constitutionally infirm and would reverse the holding of the court of appeals and affirm the trial court’s order.
The defendant pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree sexual assault and one count of escape on October 25, 1982. He received sentences of two years and two and one-half years to be served consecutively. On May 17, 1983, after a detainer was filed against him by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the defendant filed a motion for post-conviction relief under Crim.P. 35(c), claiming that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney had not advised him of the possible deportation consequences of his guilty pleas. The trial court disagreed and denied the motion. The court of appeals reversed.
At the outset I should note my agreement with that part of the majority opinion which holds that a trial court is not required to advise a defendant of collateral *531consequences of his conviction in order that there be a valid plea of guilty. Further, I agree that potential federal deportation is a collateral and not a direct consequence of a plea of guilty.
However, I do not agree with the balance of the majority opinion which requires the trial court to evaluate the ineffectiveness of counsel claim by (1) determining whether counsel had a duty to apprise himself of immigration law; (2) whether failure to do so renders the attorney’s assistance constitutionally ineffective; and (3) judge the reasonableness of the attorney’s conduct, viewed as of the time of the conduct.
The interest at stake in a Crim.P. 11 proceeding is whether the defendant voluntarily entered a plea of guilty to the crime for which he was charged.
In Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970), the defendant sought post-conviction relief on the ground that had he known of a subsequent Supreme Court decision at .the time of his plea, he never would have pleaded guilty. The Supreme Court rejected his argument stating:
Central to the plea and the foundation for entering judgment against the defendant is the defendant’s admission in open court that he committed the acts charged in the indictment.
397 U.S. at 748, 90 S.Ct. at 1468. The Supreme Court also said:
A plea of guilty entered by one fully aware of direct consequences, including the actual value of any commitments made to him by the court, prosecutor, or his own counsel, must stand unless induced by threats ... misrepresentation ... or perhaps by promises that are by their nature improper as having no proper relationship to the prosecutor’s business.
397 U.S. 742, 755, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 1472, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970), quoting Shelton v. United States, 246 F.2d 571, 572 n. 2 (5th Cir.1957), rev’d on other grounds, 356 U.S. 26, 78 S.Ct. 563, 2 L.Ed.2d 579 (1958) (emphasis added).
There is no contention by Pozo that he did not understand the direct consequences of his plea or that his plea was invalid because of any threat, misrepresentation, or other impropriety. Therefore, he is left with his “but/for argument,” i.e., but/for the failure of my lawyer in not advising me that I might be deported if I pleaded guilty, I would not have pleaded guilty.
An ineffectiveness of counsel argument is immaterial with respect to a guilty plea except to the extent that it relates to the issues of voluntariness and understanding. Lee v. Hopper, 499 F.2d 456, 462 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1053, 95 S.Ct. 633, 42 L.Ed.2d 650 (1974). A plea is considered knowing and voluntary when the defendant has been advised of all consequences which have a “definite, immediate, and largely automatic effect on the range of [a defendant’s] punishment.” People v. Heinz, 197 Colo. 102, 106, 589 P.2d 931, 933 (1979), quoting Cuthrell v. Director, 475 F.2d 1364 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1005, 94 S.Ct. 362, 38 L.Ed.2d 241 (1973).
Our inquiry should be directed, then, solely to determine whether he understood the direct consequences of his plea. Clearly, as the majority acknowledges, deportation is a collateral consequence of conviction and not a direct consequence.
I agree with the substantial majority of courts that have utilized the collateral/direct consequence distinction to reject the claim that a defendant’s ignorance of deportation consequences reflects ineffective assistance of counsel and renders his plea involuntary. See United States v. Campbell, 778 F.2d 764 (11th Cir.1985); United States v. Gavilan, 761 F.2d 226 (5th Cir. 1985); United States v. Santelises, 509 F.2d 703 (2d Cir.1975); United States v. Parrino, 212 F.2d 919 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 840, 75 S.Ct. 46, 99 L.Ed. 663 (1954); Government of the Virgin Islands v. Pamphile, 604 F.Supp. 753 (D.V.I.1985); Tafoya v. State, 500 P.2d 247 (Alaska 1972), cert, denied, 410 U.S. 945, 93 S.Ct. 1389, 35 L.Ed.2d 611 (1973); State v. Gine-bra, 511 So.2d 960 (Fla.1987); Mott v. State, 407 N.W.2d 581 (Iowa 1987); State v. Chung, 210 NJ.Super. 427, 510 A.2d 72 (App.Div.1986); State v. Malik, 37 Wash. App. 414, 680 P.2d 770 (1984); State v. *532Santos, 136 Wis.2d 528, 401 N.W.2d 856 (Ct.App.), review denied, 411 N.W.2d 140 (Wis.1987). But see United States v. Shapiro, 16 F.R.D. 499 (E.D.Wis.), appeal dismissed, 222 F.2d 836 (7th Cir.1955); People v. Padilla, 151 Ill.App.3d 297, 104 Ill.Dec. 522, 502 N.E.2d 1182 (1986), appeal denied, 114 Ill.2d 554, 108 Ill.Dec. 423, 508 N.E.2d 734 (1987); Commonwealth v. Wellington, 305 Pa.Super. 24, 451 A.2d 223 (1982).
The collateral/direct consequence distinction reflects the nature of the rights a defendant has in pleading guilty. The Supreme Court identified the bases for those rights in the following words: McCarthy v. United States,. 394 U.S. 459, 466, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 1171, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969).
A defendant who enters such a [guilty] plea simultaneously waives several constitutional rights, including his privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, his right to trial by jury, and his right to confront his accusers. For this waiver to be valid under the Due Process Clause, it must be “an intentional relinquishment of a known right or privilege.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 [58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461] (1938). Consequently, if a defendant’s guilty plea is not equally voluntary and knowing, it has been obtained in violation of due process and is therefore void. Moreover, because a guilty plea is an admission of all the elements of a formal criminal charge, it cannot be truly voluntary unless the defendant possesses an understanding of the law in relation to the facts.
In addition, a defendant must understand the penalty the legislature has fixed for the criminal conduct to which he is pleading guilty. Absent such an understanding, the defendant may plead guilty under a misguided expectation — however induced— that his plea will result in some measure of sentencing leniency.
None of those reasons supports the rule the majority adopts today. It cannot be disputed that a defendant may attach substantial importance to some collateral consequences of a guilty plea. We have never before held, however, that the potential importance of a particular collateral consequence may give rise to a constitutional right to be apprised of that consequence by defense counsel. The loss of one’s right to vote, exclusion from military service, or other disabilities attached to a felony conviction may be just as harsh a consequence to a citizen defendant as deportation may be to an alien, yet courts have consistently denied that defendants have a constitutional right to be informed of the former collateral consequences. See generally J. Bond, Plea Bargaining & Guilty Pleas §§ 3.38-.49 (2d Ed.1983); Comment, Collateral Consequences of Guilty Pleas in the Federal Criminal Justice System, 16 Harv.C.R.-C.L.L.Rev. 157 (1981).1 The majority opinion focuses on the potential deportation consequences of guilty pleas in criminal proceedings, and thereby opens the door to innumerable challenges to pleas *533based on the defendant’s ignorance of other serious collateral consequences.
In United States v. Timmreck, 441 U.S. 780, 99 S.Ct. 2085, 60 L.Ed.2d 634 (1978), the defendant sought habeas corpus relief and alleged that his guilty plea was involuntary because he was unaware of the mandatory parole term that would result from his conviction. A unanimous Supreme Court denied relief, and concluded with a caution that bears repeating here:
Every inroad on the concept of finality undermines confidence in the integrity of our procedures; and, by increasing the volume of judicial work, inevitably delays and impairs the orderly administration of justice. The impact is greatest when new grounds for setting aside guilty pleas are approved because the vast majority of criminal convictions result from such pleas. Moreover, the concern that unfair procedures may have resulted in the conviction of an innocent defendant is only rarely raised by a petition to set aside a guilty plea.
441 U.S. at 784, 99 S.Ct. at 2087-88, quoting United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521, 528-29 (7th Cir.1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting).
The defendant has never claimed that he did not commit the crimes that he pleaded guilty to. Nothing has been brought to my attention which gives me reason to question the reliability of defendant’s guilty plea as establishing his actual commission of the crimes charged.
An additional problem with the majority opinion is the burden it places on the trial courts to determine whether an attorney whose client is an alien has reasonably investigated relevant immigration law. Maj. op. at 529. The majority opinion states that “an examination of the relevant statutes and governing law” is necessary to determine “whether the performance of Pozo’s counsel fell below an objective standard of reasonable conduct.” Maj. op. at 528. It then considers 8 U.S.C. § 1251(a) and (b) (1982), and concludes that a sentencing judge can prevent the deportation of a convicted alien.
A cursory review of the United States immigration law and the applicable regulations suggests that the trial court will be required to hold an extensive evidentiary hearing in order to determine whether an attorney’s performance was “reasonable.”
United States immigration law is complex and the regulations and judicial decisions interpreting the law represent a body of knowledge to which some attorneys devote their full time and attention. A public defender or attorney in private practice who represents defendants in criminal cases should not be found to be “ineffective” for failing to advise his client about a body of civil law which is not directly related to the issues involved in a Crim.P. 11 hearing. The majority, by opening the Pandora’s box of collateral consequences, has further burdened an overtaxed judicial system. It has also provided defendants who have knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily entered pleas of guilty an opportunity to withdraw those pleas, sometimes years after witnesses and evidence have been lost, on the ground that “but/for” their attorney’s failure to advise of collateral consequences they would not have entered such a plea.
Finally, although the majority acknowledges the unanimous rule that the trial court need not advise the defendant sua sponte of his possible deportation .following conviction, maj. op. at 526, that rule is shorn of meaning by the majority’s decision today. The majority holds, in effect, that an alien defendant has a constitutional right to know the possible deportation consequences of his guilty plea. Maj. op. at 529. To say that it is the duty of defendant’s counsel — and not of the trial court— to inform the defendant of those consequences is of little practical effect; a judge who diligently follows the requirements of Crim.P. 11 but does not inquire into the defendant’s alienage and knowledge of deportation consequences no longer ensures that the guilty plea he accepts is being made voluntarily. As we explained in People v. Quintana, 634 P.2d 413 (1981):
Rule 11 contemplates that the transcribed colloquy between the court and the defendant will eliminate the need to *534resort to a subsequent fact-finding proceeding in order to determine whether a guilty plea was voluntarily and understanding^ made.
634 P.2d at 417 n. 1. See also McCarthy, 394 U.S. at 467, 89 S.Ct. at 1171.
Accordingly, I would affirm the district court’s order.
I am authorized to say that ERICKSON and VOLLACK, JJ., join in this dissent.

. Although deportation has an undeniable impact on a defendant’s life, so do other collateral consequences which often flow from a guilty plea. Failure to inform the defendant of the following consequences of his guilty plea has been held not to render the plea invalid. Wright v. United States, 624 F.2d 557, 561 (5th Cir. 1980) (a plea’s possible enhancing effects on a subsequent sentence); Moore v. Hinton, 513 F.2d 781 (5th Cir.1975) (suspension of auto license); United States v. Crowley, 529 F.2d 1066, 1072 (3d Cir.), cert, denied, 425 U.S. 995, 96 S.Ct. 2209, 48 L.Ed.2d 820 (1976) (loss of civil service job as result of felony conviction); Cuthrell v. Director, 475 F.2d 1364, 1366 (4th Cir.), cert, denied, 414 U.S. 1005, 94 S.Ct. 362, 38 L.Ed.2d 241 (1973) (institution of separate civil proceedings against defendant for commitment to a mental health facility); Hutchison v. United States, 450 F.2d 930, 931 (10th Cir.1971) (loss of good time credit); Waddy v. Davis, 445 F.2d 1 (5th Cir.1971) (disenfranchisement); United States v. Vermeulen, 436 F.2d 72, 75 (2d Cir. 1970), cert, denied, 402 U.S. 911, 91 S.Ct. 1390, 28 L.Ed.2d 653 (1971) (possibility of imposition of consecutive sentences); Meaton v. United States, 328 F.2d 379 (5th Cir. 1964), cert, denied, 380 U.S. 916, 85 S.Ct. 902, 13 L.Ed.2d 801 (1965) (deprivation of rights to vote and to travel abroad); United States v. Carióla, 323 F.2d 180 (3d Cir.1963) (deprivation of right to vote in some jurisdictions); Redwine v. Zuckert, 317 F.2d 336 (D.C.Cir.1963) (possibility of undesirable discharge from the armed forces); State v. Riggins, 466 A.2d 981 (N.J.Super.Ct.App.Div. 1983) (loss of employment).