Court Opinion

ID: 9849712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:44:56.982193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:25.260216
License: Public Domain

65. LOUIS B. BUTLER, JR., J.
¶ (concurring). We took this case to decide whether an otherwise satisfactory guilty plea is sufficient to relinquish a double jeopardy/multiplicity challenge upon direct appeal. The majority concludes that a guilty plea relinquishes the right to assert such a claim when that claim cannot be ascertained on the record. Majority op., ¶ 2. The majority further adopts for direct appeals the Broce1 rule *96on collateral attacks, holding that a defendant who enters a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary guilty plea gives up the right to a fact-finding hearing on the propriety of multiple charges. Id,.; United States v. Broce, 488 U.S. 563, 576 (1989). I write separately because I would not apply a rule designed for collateral attacks to direct appeals.
¶ 66. Of concern is the broad rule that the majority adopts that would apparently preclude the defendant from ever having an evidentiary hearing as part of a direct appeal in pursuing a motion to withdraw a guilty plea on double jeopardy grounds. The majority concludes that "[w]hen a defendant enters a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary guilty plea, the nature and effect of the plea necessarily2 mean that the defendant gives up the right to a fact-finding3 hearing on the propriety of multiple charges." Majority op., ¶ 2 (citing Broce, 488 U.S. at 576). Yet, whether the plea was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary would necessarily have to he determined by a fact-finding hearing.
¶ 67. The majority does indicate that a defendant may seek to withdraw a guilty plea if (1) the plea is not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, or (2) the defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel in deciding to enter a plea. Id., ¶¶ 3, 43. Yet, in application, the majority4 would limit plea withdrawals based on double jeopardy violations to record reviews, notwithstanding the fact that allegations of double jeopardy "will often depend on facts outside the record." See State v. Hampton, 2004 WI 107, ¶ 61, 274 Wis. 2d 379, 683 N.W.2d 14.
*97¶ 68. I also submit that the majority appears to misunderstand the underpinnings of the Broce decision, and therefore mistakenly and unnecessarily applies a rule for collateral attacks to direct appeals. I start by discussing the general rule established in Broce. The court wrote that:
[Wlhen the judgment of conviction upon a guilty plea has become final and the offender seeks to reopen the proceeding, the inquiry is ordinarily confined to whether the underlying plea was both counseled and voluntary. If the answer is in the affirmative then the conviction and plea, as a general rule, foreclose the collateral attack. There are exceptions where on the face of the record the court had no power to enter the conviction or impose the sentence.
Broce, 488 U.S. at 569 (emphasis added).
¶ 69. In discussing the source of the rule, the Court noted that "[a] defendant is not entitled to withdraw his plea merely because he discovers long after the plea has been accepted that calculus misapprehended the quality of the State's case or the likely penalties attached to alternative courses of action." Id. at 572. (citing Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 757 (1970) (eight year delay between guilty plea and habeas corpus action to withdraw guilty plea). The Court further stated "a counseled defendant may not make a collateral attack on a guilty plea on the allegation that he misjudged the admissibility of his confession." Id. (citing McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 770 (1970)). In citing another habeas corpus action in support of its reasoning, the Court stated "[t]he collat-. eral challenge was foreclosed by the earlier guilty plea." Id. at 573 (citing Tolled v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 266-67 (1973)). The Court summarized its understanding of the general rule as follows:
*98"[I]t is well settled that a voluntary plea of guilty made by an accused person, who has been advised by competent counsel, may not be collaterally attacked." That principle controls here. Respondents have not called into question the voluntary and intelligent character of their pleas, and therefore are not entitled to the collateral relief they seek.
Id. at 574 (citing Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 504, 508 (1984) (emphasis added)).
¶ 70. The Court recognized that there were exceptions to the general rule barring collateral attack on a guilty plea. Id. (citing Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21 (1974), and Menna v. New York, 423 U.S. 61 (1975)). Those exceptions include where "the constitutional infirmity in the proceedings lay in the State's power to bring any indictment at all[,]" or where "the indictment was facially duplicative of the earlier offense of which the defendant had been convicted and sentenced...." Id. at 575-76. When those exceptions were presented, they were resolved without any need to venture beyond the record. Id. at 575.
¶ 71. I view these exceptions as not taking away from the general rule's premise that would allow a defendant to challenge whether a plea was knowing and voluntary. To the extent that bringing such a challenge during a direct appeal requires going out of the record, I do not view Broce as providing any such limitation.
¶ 72. Such an interpretation is entirely consistent with the United States Supreme Court's approach that treats direct appeals very differently than collateral attacks to a judgment of conviction. See Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 489-96 (1976); see also Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 633-34 (1993) ("The principle that collateral review is different from direct review resounds throughout our habeas jurisprudence. . . . (Ha-*99beas corpus is designed to guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems). Accordingly, it hardly bears repeating that 'an error that may justify reversal on direct appeal will not necessarily support a collateral attack on a final judgment.' ") (quotations and citations omitted). Thus, a record review would appear to be perfectly appropriate where one has already exhausted or foregone one's appeal rights, as contrasted with one who was still developing an appellate record. In the latter situation, a defendant ought to be able to show that a guilty plea was not knowing or voluntary, or that defense counsel was ineffective, even if it means going outside the record.
¶ 73. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully concur.
¶ 74. I am authorized to state that Justice ANN WALSH BRADLEY joins this concurring opinion.

 United States v. Broce, 488 U.S. 563, 576 (1989).

 Emphasis added.

 Emphasis in original.

 Majority op., ¶¶ 46-51.