Court Opinion

ID: 9727957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:53:36.07745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.554618
License: Public Domain

PIVARNIK, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority opinion wherein it finds that the trial court erred in determining that the guilty plea record was sufficient to support a finding that a guilty plea was knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily entered.
The majority makes several references in regard to what the plea bargain agreement “informed” the defendant as to his rights. I think we should place in proper perspective what a plea agreement is. A plea bargain agreement filed with the court is not for the purpose of informing the defendant of some rights he has. The purpose of it is to inform the court as to an agreement the parties have reached and to ask the court to accept their agreement. This plea bargain agreement was entered into by the defendant personally, by his counsel, and by the State of Indiana through the prosecuting attorney, and filed with the court as a pleading is filed, asking the court to accept this plea the defendant is offering to make and to give him the sentence to which he is agreeing.
This plea bargain was three pages long and set out in detail that the defendant understood what he was doing in many respects. Among other things, it stated that he did not have to enter this plea bargain agreement and, furthermore, if the court did not accept it, his guilty plea would automatically be set aside and he would be back where he was and in a position to go to trial on the issues. It also contained the provision that charges of kidnapping and robbery would be dismissed by the State. It further provided that another unrelated charge of rape and robbery would be dismissed by the State. It should be noted that this bargain was kept and a nolle pros-equi order was entered as to these charges by the court at the close of the sentencing. At the post-conviction hearing, the defendant stated that he was aware that he faced *489a life sentence for kidnapping and therefore was willing to plea bargain for fifteen years as a total sentence for all the charge? against him. The defendant assured the court during the sentencing that he was fully advised of all the charges against him, that he knew and understood his position and that there were no threats or promises made to induce him to' enter a guilty plea. It was well known to all parties that the two girls who had been raped and robbed had positively identified both him and his co-defendant and, furthermore, that the co-defendant had already pleaded guilty, taken a fifteen-year sentence, and stood ready to testify against him at his trial.
It was the petitioner’s own language that was used in his plea bargain submitted to the court, in which he referred to the “right not to testify without prejudice,” to which the court referred when he asked the petitioner about that right. The petitioner told the court he fillly understood what right he was talking about. He told the judge in open court that he had gone over the plea agreement with his attorney, that he understood the charges filed against him and the consequences of his pleading.guilty to the second count of the affidavit.
Surely we are indulging in nothing more than legal fictions and semantic gymnastics when we say in a circumstance such as this that the defendant did not plead guilty knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. Defendant was represented in court by a very experienced and very competent defense attorney. He told the judge in open court that he and his co-defendant had approached the two girls in their car, had gotten into the car with them and forced them to drive some distance and pull off 15th Avenue and that they there raped and robbed them. He gave this story in his own words, telling the judge that he had sex with one of the girls in the front seat and his cohort had sex with the other in the back seat. We said in Neeley v. State, (1978) Ind., 382 N.E.2d 714, that the better practice would be for the trial courts in accepting guilty pleas to follow the language of Ind.Code (Burns 1975) § 35-4.1-1-3 to the letter and therefore remove any and all questions regarding the defendant’s knowledge of his rights and the voluntariness of his plea. We also said in the Neeley case and many other cited by the majority here that we will look to the entire record to determine whether under all the circumstances the defendant did enter his plea knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily, and further that we would not require the trial court to use the exact language of the Constitution or the statutes if, in fact, the record shows that the meaning was conveyed to the defendant. Neeley, supra; Jones v. State, (1969) 253 Ind. 235, 252 N.E.2d 572, citing Coyote v. United States, (10th Cir.), 380 F.2d 305, 308, cert. denied, (1967), 389 U.S. 992, 88 S.Ct. 489, 19 L.Ed.2d 484.
This was a post-conviction relief motion before the trial court in which the petitioner-defendant carries the burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that his conviction was improper. At the post-conviction hearing, the defendant-petitioner testified that there was no right he had that he knew of that was not given to him or that he did not understand. His only reason for pleading guilty was that he was afraid he would get life for the kidnapping charge and therefore pleaded guilty even though he did not commit the crime. Nothing in the record sustains the defendant in this testimony to the court and there is absolutely no reasonable interpretation that could be given to the handling of this matter by the court that would place the defendant in this position.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial ■court.
GIVAN, C. J., concurs.