Court Opinion

ID: 9553976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:38:33.844227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:32:42.097287
License: Public Domain

MANNHEIMER, Judge,
concurring.
I am writing separately to clarify which facets of this ease lead me to conclude that Perry should have been allowed to withdraw his plea.
For present purposes, the story of Perry’s plea and his later attempt to withdraw it begins two days before the plea, on Thursday, October 28, 1993. On that day, Judge Hopwood held a hearing in Unalaska on a defense motion to suppress certain evidence. At the close of the suppression hearing, after Perry’s attorney had left the courtroom to board a plane back to Anchorage, Perry told Judge Hopwood that he believed his attorney was not prepared for trial (which was set for the next Monday). Perry asked Judge Hop-wood to discharge his attorney, appoint him a new one, and continue the trial for 30 days to allow the new attorney to prepare. Judge Hopwood took no action on Perry’s request at that time.
The next day (Friday, October 29), Judge Hopwood convened the parties to announce his decision on the suppression motion. (Perry’s attorney was in Anchorage, participating by telephone.) After announcing that he was denying the suppression motion, *1232Judge Hopwood took up Perry’s motion to dismiss counsel and to continue the trial.
After hearing the State’s position 1, Judge Hopwood allowed Perry to air his complaints about his attorney in an ex parte hearing. Ultimately, Judge Hopwood denied Perry’s motion and ordered Perry’s attorney to continue to represent him. Judge Hopwood announced that Perry’s trial would proceed as scheduled the following Monday, November 1.
That evening (Friday, October 29), Perry called his attorney in Anchorage and asked him to speak to the State about a possible plea agreement. Pursuant to this request, Perry’s attorney worked out a tentative agreement with the State. On Saturday, October 30 at 12:30 p.m., Judge Hopwood convened a hearing to accept Perry’s change of plea. Judge Hopwood presided telephoni-cally (having returned to Kodiak for the weekend), and Perry’s counsel participated telephonically from Anchorage. The prosecutor and Perry were in the Unalaska courtroom, accompanied by the Unalaska magistrate and three corrections officers.
Apparently, Perry’s attorney had calendared the hearing even though he was not certain if Perry was going to accept the newly negotiated plea bargain: at the beginning of the hearing, Perry’s attorney asked Judge Hopwood to determine if Perry was actually interested in changing his plea. When Judge Hopwood made this inquiry, Perry stated that he “was considering accepting a deal”.
For the next two and a quarter hours, the judge, the attorneys, and Perry discussed whether Perry would change his plea. Perry repeatedly expressed hesitancy about pleading no contest to first-degree assault, and he raised several questions about the consequences of such a decision. Several times, Judge Hopwood allowed Perry to interrupt the proceedings to consult privately with his attorney. However, as the afternoon wore on, Judge Hopwood expressed increasing impatience with the fact that court had been convened to accept a change of plea even when Perry’s acceptance of the plea agreement remained unsettled.
At one point during the discussions, Perry told Judge Hopwood that he wished to consult his wife about whether he should change his plea. Judge Hopwood recessed the proceedings to allow Perry to try to telephone his wife, but he told Perry that the recess would last no more than five minutes. Perry tried to contact his wife but was unable to do so within the allotted five minutes. The hearing moved on.
In addition to his misgivings about the consequences of the plea, Perry also told Judge Hopwood that he was a long-term smoker and that, because the jail had a no-smoking policy, he was going through nicotine withdrawal at the hearing. (Perry had been allowed a cigarette before the hearing began, but the hearing was now stretching toward two hours’ duration.)
Toward the end of the hearing, Perry again indicated that he needed to talk privately with his attorney. Judge Hopwood told Perry that the conversation could last no more than five minutes. After talking to his attorney for a few minutes, Perry finally entered his no contest plea. Judge Hopwood accepted the plea and adjourned the court. The time was 2:45 p.m.
Shortly after 10:00 p.m. that evening, Perry notified a guard at the Unalaska jail that he wanted to withdraw his plea. Perry asked the guard to call his attorney and the assistant district attorney. The guard was unable to reach Perry’s attorney but did manage to notify the district attorney’s office. Perry was finally able to contact his attorney on Sunday, October 31 with his request to withdraw his plea. The attorney filed a motion to withdraw Perry’s plea on Tuesday, November 2.
Following a hearing, Judge Hopwood denied this motion. Judge Hopwood found that *1233Perry had been able to adequately consult with his attorney, and that Perry faced only the ordinary pressure that anyone would face who was entering a plea to a serious felony charge shortly before a scheduled trial. Judge Hopwood concluded that Perry was only trying to manipulate the system by delaying the resolution of his case. The judge further found that the state would be prejudiced if Perry were allowed to withdraw his plea (because of the witness difficulties described above).
Although a trial judge has considerable discretion in deciding whether to allow a plea withdrawal, I conclude that Perry should have been allowed to withdraw his plea. The record in this case reveals several matters that should have alerted Judge Hopwood to be extremely cautious in accepting Perry’s plea.
First, Perry was clearly having problems with his attorney; the day before he entered his plea, Perry had asked the court to remove his attorney and appoint him a new one. Perry apparently believed that his attorney was not prepared for trial.
Shortly after his request for a new attorney was denied, Perry asked his attorney to see about a plea bargain. This chain of events should have put the court on guard to the possibility that Perry was seeking a plea agreement only because he considered a negotiated settlement preferable to going to trial with an attorney who (he believed) was unprepared to adequately represent him.
When Judge Hopwood convened the change of plea hearing on Saturday afternoon, it was obvious from the defense attorney’s statements and Perry’s responses that neither Perry nor his attorney was quite sure whether Perry wanted to change his plea. Clearly, this was a matter that had not been fully discussed between attorney and client. Commendably, Judge Hopwood gave Perry several opportunities to talk with his attorney. However, Perry had to talk with his attorney by telephone. Moreover, as the hearing stretched to over two hours, Judge Hopwood began to apply pressure to Perry to limit his discussions with his attorney.
Perry told Judge Hopwood that he was not feeling well — that he was suffering from nicotine withdrawal. However, rather than recessing the hearing to allow Perry to smoke, Judge Hopwood pressed on. Perry expressed the desire to consult his wife about the plea bargain, but Judge Hopwood gave Perry only five minutes to try to contact his wife, and Perry was unable to contact her.
In sum, the record shows that Perry repeatedly expressed skepticism and uncertainty about changing his plea until the very conclusion of the hearing. He was placed under psychological, physiological, and time pressure to make a decision. His ability to consult with his attorney and his spouse was limited. Given these circumstances, what happened next was not surprising: a few hours after changing his plea, Perry told the officials at the jail that he wanted to withdraw the plea.
In denying Perry’s motion to withdraw his plea, Judge Hopwood found that Perry was attempting to manipulate the system by having his trial cancelled. I find this conclusion dubious. Perry contacted the jail officials only a few hours after entering his plea. This was on Saturday evening; trial was not set until Monday morning. When Perry asked the jail officials to contact the attorneys, he must have known that there was a good chance the State either had not yet called off its witnesses or would be able to reestablish the witnesses’ travel plans and proceed to trial, either on Monday as scheduled or with only a slight delay.
Judge Hopwood also found that the State would be prejudiced by allowing Perry to withdraw his plea. However, this prejudice stemmed primarily from the fact that many of the State’s witnesses might not be available again until the spring. Given the facts of this case, I do not believe that this anticipated delay justified depriving Perry of his right to a trial. I recognize that it is sometimes extremely difficult to get court personnel and witnesses to an outlying area such as Unalaska. Judge Hopwood could properly take this into account. However, under the facts of this case, I do not think that this factor was entitled to determinative weight.
*1234The record in this case reveals that Perry was pressured into making his decision, not just by the circumstances that normally confront a defendant whose trial is fast approaching, but also by his attorney and, to a certain extent, by the court. Perry’s attorney calendared the change of plea hearing before he knew whether his client wished to accept the plea bargain. The attorney-client discussion of the plea bargain took place, in large measure, during the hearing itself. Perry’s discussions with his attorney were hampered by the fact that the attorney was not personally present in Unalaska with Perry. Perry was told that he had only a limited time to consult his attorney about the various facets of the plea bargain. Perry was given only a limited opportunity to try to contact his wife, and during the lengthy proceedings no accommodation was made for Perry’s nicotine addiction. Again and again, Perry expressed uncertainty about whether to accept the plea bargain. It appears that he ultimately changed his plea because he was worn down.
Under the totality of these circumstances, I conclude that Perry established good cause for withdrawing his plea.

. The State opposed a continuance. Several of the State's witnesses were fishermen who were flying to Unalaska from Washington and California over the weekend to attend the trial. The prosecutor told the court that most of these fishermen would be going to sea in early December to fish; if Perry’s trial were continued for 30 days, the State would have a difficult time obtaining the fishermen's attendance.