Court Opinion

ID: 9673656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:16:09.093111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:31:25.652814
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Presiding Judge
(dissenting).
Although I agree with the opinion of WELBORN, C., that since there was evidence to support the finding that defendant’s statement was voluntary, “ * * * the question of the relevancy of an involuntary statement to the voluntariness of a plea of guilty * * * ” drops out of the case, I must respectfully dissent on the proposition that we should not pass on the conten*782tion that the trial court failed to comply with Rule 25.04.
Although this issue was not included in defendant’s 27.26 motion, the following evidence came in without objection and the hearing was thereby expanded accordingly. In the state’s cross-examination of the court reporter, the reporter said it was customary for the judge to ask defendant certain questions prior to accepting a plea of guilty, but although he had been the reporter 19 years he was unable to recall more than that the usual question was “if he had discussed this matter with his attorney and asked what his plea was.” The state called the circuit clerk as its witness and asked if she recalled whether the judge followed a custom in sentencing. She said he did, but she could remember nothing about this case and nothing was developed from her as to what the judge’s custom was except she could not recall any case where he did not ask the accused on a guilty plea whether that was his plea. The record is insufficient, in my opinion, to show the plea of guilty was accepted only after the court first determined it was made voluntarily with understanding of the nature of the charge. This defect is not cured by the failure of the trial court in the 27.26 hearing to pass on it.
Entirely aside from the standards set forth in Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274, our Rule 25.04 has been in force ever since January 1, 1953, so it applied when the guilty plea was entered in this case on September 23, 1957. That rule requires the court « * * ⅝ shaii noi accept the plea without first determining that the plea is made voluntarily with understanding of the nature of the charge * * * ” It is up to the court or the state to see this is done, not up to the defendant. In the present case, there is an absence of any showing of compliance with this mandatory rule. The fact the trial court did not believe defendant’s testimony at the 27.26 hearing does not establish the existence of a contrary set of facts. In my opinion, the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded for further hearing as to whether Rule 25.-04 was complied with at the time the guilty plea was entered. I do not understand Drew v. State (Mo.Sup.) 436 S.W.2d 727, and State v. Davis (Mo.Sup.) 438 S.W.2d 232, cited by Judge WELBORN, to hold otherwise. In the first, the transcript of the proceedings at the time of the guilty plea was available and considered by the court. It supplied “ * * * ample evidentiary basis for a finding that the plea of guilty was ‘made voluntarily with understanding of the nature of the charge’ * * * ”, 436 S.W.2d l.c. 733. In the second, there was testimony at the 27.26 hearing that the circuit judge at the time of the guilty plea explained the charges to the defendant and that defendant understood the charges against him, 438 S.W.2d l.c. 236-237.
In my opinion, Rule 25.04 is sound and should be scrupulously observed. While not suggesting that such has occurred, it is evident that the requirements of Rule 25.04 could be disregarded with impunity and grave abuses could occur in practice under the majority opinion, so long as the trial court disbelieves defendant’s testimony at the 27.26 hearing in a case where the record is silent or insufficient as to compliance with the rule at the time of the guilty plea.