Court Opinion

ID: 9859434
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 21:40:22.852493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:00:41.825701
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority avoids interpreting section 40-18-19, North Dakota Century Code, instead resting its opinion on the general rule that a voluntary guilty plea waives all non-jurisdictional defects alleged to have occurred prior to the guilty plea, including alleged violations of constitutional rights. State v. Slapnicka, 376 N.W.2d 33, 35 (N.D.1985); State v. Gilley, 289 N.W.2d 238, 240 (N.D.1980); State v. Barlow, 193 N.W.2d 455, 457 (N.D.1971). However, that rule has no application to an appeal from municipal court because such an appeal has nothing to do with “defects”, i.e., errors, either nonjurisdictional or jurisdictional. What we are talking about here is a new trial in the county court. “Appeal” is really a misnomer. See Bryan v. Miller, 73 N.D. 487, 16 N.W.2d 275, 282 (1944). By its very terms, the above-stated waiver *366rule applies to error-correcting appeals, and should not be applied to non-error-correcting “appeals” from municipal court.
Municipal courts are not courts of record. While not making a record may reduce expenses and allow cases to move quickly through these busy courts, the shortcut reduces the protections for criminal defendants built into more formal proceedings. Thus, a generous right of appeal under NDCC § 40-18-19, provides a reasonable safeguard for a defendant convicted in municipal court.
Further, under the statute in effect at the time, municipal courts had exclusive jurisdiction over all violations of city ordinances. NDCC § 40-18-01 (amended in 1987 N.D.Sess.Laws, ch. 375, section 4, to eliminate the municipal court’s exclusive jurisdiction). Under this system, pleading guilty in municipal court may be viewed as a pragmatic way of saving the time and expense of trial in municipal court, in favor of trial in a court of record.
It is significant that eighty-five percent of the municipal judges in North Dakota are not law trained. See 1985 Annual Report on the North Dakota Judiciary. Cases upholding the right to appeal from guilty pleas in municipal courts have done so, in part, because the judges who preside over municipal courts are “frequently” untrained in the law, not because all of them were untrained in the law. See, e.g., Pueblo v. Trujillo, 374 P.2d 863 (Col.1962). Thus, an appeal from a guilty plea should not be waived simply because, as in this case, the judge happens to be a lawyer. Either an appeal lies or it does not. The general character of the court should guide our analysis, not the exception to that general character.
The plain language of NDCC § 40-18-19 authorizes an appeal from a “judgment of conviction” in a municipal court. A guilty plea is a conviction, and, once accepted, nothing remains but to enter judgment and impose sentence. See Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 242-43, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 1711-12, 23 L.Ed.2d 274, 279 (1969); State v. Barlow, 193 N.W.2d 455, 458 (N.D.1971). A “judgment” in a criminal case constitutes a judicial determination of guilt based upon a verdict or a plea of guilty. Vasquez v. Courtney, 272 Or. 477, 537 P.2d 536, 537 (1975). When the municipal court accepted Helenske’s guilty plea and imposed a fine and a suspended sentence, the court in effect entered a judgment of conviction. See Rule 32(b), NDRCrimP. (“A judgment of conviction must set forth the plea, the verdict, and the adjudication of sentence.”) That judgment of conviction is appealable.
In my view, it was incorrect to avoid interpreting the statute governing appeals from municipal court, and it was unwise to extend the waiver rule to non-error-correcting appeals. Therefore, I dissent.
MESCHKE, J., concurs.