Court Opinion

ID: 9859533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 21:57:53.030306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:51:45.503652
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(concurring specially).
Although I concur in the result, I do not agree with the majority opinion’s view of ABA Standard 1.5, Pleas of Guilty, or what it says about the implications of Henderson v. Morgan, -U.S. -, 96 S.Ct. 2253, 49 L.Ed.2d 108 (1976). I do not believe “meaningful compliance” with Standard 1.5 would have been demonstrated in the present case if petitioner’s trial attorney had testified in the postconviction hearing that he advised petitioner the plea bargain did not call for the forgery charge to be dismissed. Nor do I believe the Henderson case suggests “trial counsel may in the future play a far greater role in plea proceedings than we described and decried in State v. Hansen, * * * [221 N.W.2d 274, 277-278 (Iowa 1974)].”
I. The ABA Standard. It is a contradiction in terms to say meaningful compliance with ABA Standard 1.5, Pleas of Guilty, can be established by making a supplemental evidentiary record in a collateral attack proceeding. By its terms the standard applies in the plea proceeding. It imposes a procedural duty on the trial court in that proceeding. Therefore, meaningful compliance with the standard cannot occur unless it occurs there. The majority’s suggestion that meaningful compliance with the standard can await a postconviction proceeding is an invitation to the very evil the standard was intended to prevent.
This standard, adopted in State v. Sisco, 169 N.W.2d 542 (Iowa 1969), imposes a procedural duty on the trial court in the original plea proceeding to implement the constitutional mandate of the Supreme Court in Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969). It is designed to help assure in the record of the plea proceeding that a defendant’s plea of guilty is a voluntary and intelligent act and to help reduce the great waste of judicial re*329sources required to process frivolous attacks on guilty plea convictions that are encouraged and are more difficult to dispose of when the original record is inadequate. Brainard v. State, 222 N.W.2d 711, 718-714 (Iowa 1974), and citations.
The standard contains four requirements. First, the judge should not accept a plea of guilty without determining that the plea is voluntary. Second, by inquiry of the prosecuting attorney and defense counsel the judge should determine whether the tendered plea if the result of a plea bargain and, if so, what was agreed. Third, if the prosecutor has agreed to seek charge or sentence concessions which must be approved by the court, the judge must advise the defendant personally that the prosecutor’s recommendations are not binding on the court. Fourth, the judge should address the defendant personally to determine whether any other promises or any force or threats were used to obtain the plea.
Because the standard imposes a trial court duty in the original plea proceeding, questions regarding compliance can be resolved only by examination of the record of that proceeding. The cases involving the standard cited in the majority opinion were decided on that basis. See State v. Warner, 229 N.W.2d 776 (Iowa 1975); State v. Reppert, 215 N.W.2d 302 (Iowa 1974); State v. Christensen, 201 N.W.2d 457 (Iowa 1972). The issue of compliance with the standard was not raised or decided in State v. Hansen, 221 N.W.2d 274, 277 (Iowa 1974), although we observed the voluntariness challenge which was made in that case might well have been avoided if the trial court had followed the standard in the plea proceeding.
However, these cases support the principle that a conviction on a guilty plea may be upheld despite the judge’s failure to comply with Standard 1.5 when the record of the plea proceeding is sufficient to show affirmatively that the purpose of the standard was otherwise accomplished or that the plea did not result from unkept promises or misunderstanding. As the present case illustrates, when the standard is not followed the conviction must be set aside unless the record affirmatively shows the defendant was not prejudiced by the trial judge’s omission. We have not previously decided, and we do not have to decide here, the more basic question of whether the record may be supplemented in a postcon-viction proceeding to show that noncompliance with the standard was not prejudicial. Such decision should await a case where the issue exists.
II. The Henderson case. In saying that Henderson v. Morgan, supra, suggests counsel may in the future play a far greater role in plea proceedings, the majority opinion confuses the constitutional standards discussed in Henderson with the procedural standards mandated in Sisco. The Sisco standards are intended to implement the constitutional standards, but they do not constitute the only means of achieving them. Apart from the majority’s misplaced reliance on Henderson, its statement ignores the crucial responsibilities we have imposed on counsel in plea proceedings. The problem in Henderson would not have occurred had the trial judge and counsel followed the procedures we have mandated in Sisco and its progeny.
In Henderson the Supreme Court held a state-court defendant’s plea of guilty to second-degree murder was not voluntary when it was not shown he knew intent to cause the death of his victim was an element of the offense. The court said:
“There is nothing in this record that can serve as a substitute for either a finding after trial, or a voluntary admission, that respondent had the requisite intent. Defense counsel did not purport to stipulate to that fact; they did not explain to him that his plea would be an admission of that fact; and he made no factual statement or admission necessarily implying that he had such intent. In these circumstances it is impossible to conclude that his plea to the unexplained charge of second-degree murder was voluntary.” - U.S. at -, 96 S.Ct. at 2258, 49 L.Ed.2d at 115.
*330Morgan’s conviction antedated Boykin v. Alabama, supra, and McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969).
As noted by four justices who joined the majority opinion in Henderson but who also concurred specially:
“[I]t is too late in the day to permit a guilty plea to be entered against a defendant solely on the consent of the defendant’s agent — his lawyer. Our cases make absolutely clear that the choice to plead guilty must be the defendant’s: it is he who must be informed of the consequences of his plea and what it is that he waives when he pleads, Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274, and it is on his admission that he is in fact guilty that his conviction will rest.” - U.S. at -, 96 S.Ct. at 2260, 49 L.Ed.2d at 117-118. (White, J., concurring).
Nothing in Henderson signals that we should depart from the principles recognized in our cases. The case confirms the desirability and practical necessity of the procedural mandates of Sisco and subsequent cases. See Bishop, Guilty Pleas in the Northern Midwest, 25 Drake L.Rev. 360-399 (1975). We have repeatedly and consistently held a defendant’s guilty plea conviction cannot stand unless the record affirmatively shows he understood the nature of the charge against him at the time he entered his plea. See State v. Buhr, 243 N.W.2d 546 (Iowa 1976); State v. Wall, 239 N.W.2d 548 (Iowa 1976); State v. Frazier, 232 N.W.2d 480 (Iowa 1975); State v. Watts, 225 N.W.2d 143 (Iowa 1975); Brainard v. State, 222 N.W.2d 711 (Iowa 1974). We have also said, “There is no adequate substitute for demonstrating in the record at the time the plea is tendered defendant’s understanding of the nature of the charge made against him.” State v. Reppert, supra, 215 N.W.2d at 306.
Seven years ago, in Sisco, we adopted standards which trial judges must follow in guilty plea proceedings. These standards impose upon the trial judge who accepts a tendered guilty plea the responsibility to assure that the record of the plea proceeding affirmatively discloses that the defendant’s plea is voluntary, intelligent, and has a factual basis. We adopted them as a prophylactic measure in response to the constitutional mandate of the Supreme Court in Boykin v. Alabama, supra.
In Boykin, the Court held it was error for an Alabama trial judge to accept a robbery defendant’s plea of guilty without an affirmative showing on the record of the plea proceeding that it was voluntary and intelligent. It said that a waiver of the constitutional rights given up by a plea of guilty cannot be presumed from a silent record. As a matter of federal constitutional law, the trial judge must see that an adequate record is made in the plea proceeding:
“What is at stake for an accused facing death or imprisonment demands the utmost solicitude of which courts are capable in canvassing the matter with the accused to make sure he has a full understanding of what the plea connotes and of its consequence. When the judge discharges that function, he leaves a record adequate for any review that may be later sought [citations], and forestalls the spin-off of collateral proceedings that seek to probe murky memories.” 395 U.S. at 243-244, 89 S.Ct. at 1712-1713, 23 L.Ed.2d at 280.
Prior to our decision in Sisco, the Supreme Court also decided McCarthy v. United States, supra. McCarthy concerns Rule 11, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which prescribes a federal trial judge’s duty to assure an adequate record in a federal guilty plea proceeding. The ABA standards adopted by this court in Sisco have their roots in the McCarthy principles. State v. Buhr, supra.
Like Boykin, Henderson involves constitutional issues. Like McCarthy, Sisco involves procedural implementation of constitutional doctrine. The Sisco principles enable our trial courts to avoid the constitutional pitfalls exposed in Boykin and Henderson.
Nothing in Henderson foreshadows a lessening of the responsibility of the trial *331judge to assure that an adequate record is made in the plea proceeding. In fact, the holding in the case confirms the desirability of “touching all bases” in the plea proceeding to avoid the “spin-off” of collateral proceedings with the inevitable attendant probe of uncertain memories.
Although the trial court is assigned ultimate responsibility under Sisco for assuring the adequacy of the record in a plea proceeding, counsel also have crucial responsibilities. We discussed them in State v. Williams, 224 N.W.2d 17, 19 (Iowa 1974), and summarized them as follows:
“The prosecutor and defense counsel are not mute participants in guilty plea proceedings. As an officer of the court and representative of the public, the prosecutor has a responsibility to ensure, insofar as he is capable, that the proceedings are legally adequate. As an officer of the court and representative of the defendant, the defense lawyer has a responsibility to ensure that the record shows the plea of his client is intelligent, voluntary, and accurate.”
See State v. Frazier, supra.
As long as Sisco principles apply, the role of counsel in plea proceedings will not be enlarged at the expense of limiting the role of the trial judge. Nonetheless, under Sisco there is sufficient responsibility to go around. I disagree with the majority opinion to the extent it implies otherwise.
Any annoyance caused the court and counsel because of the time and effort expended by the judge in determining the voluntary and intelligent nature of a guilty plea is a price which must be paid and is worth paying for due process of law.
MASON, RAWLINGS and REYNOLD-SON, JJ., join in this special concurrence.