Court Opinion

ID: 9742904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:22:19.764539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:37.556415
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
HOFFMAN, J. —
The majority correctly states that the only issue *218raised on appeal concerns whether the trial court erred in not following the plea agreement procedure in IC 1971, 35-5-6-2 (Burns Code Ed.). It further correctly concludes that there was no error in this respect. It then, sua sponte, places a burden upon the trial court to advise the defendant that no prosecutor’s recommendation to a lesser sentence was before the court when it accepted the guilty plea entered. In no way however has this ostensible requirement been shown to derive from IC 1971, 35-5-6-2, supra. That statute is, instead, a procedural safeguard to preclude prosecutors from making plea agreement recommendations unless they are in writing and filed before the defendant enters his guilty plea. Gross v. State (1975), 167 Ind. App. 318, 338 N.E.2d 663. Accordingly I cannot concur with the majority holding that failure to advise a defendant concerning the absence of a recommendation before the court is cause sufficient to reverse a conviction particularly when, as here, the trial judge has specifically stated that the sentence to be imposed was within his discretion in any event.
Regardless of whether the defendant knew there was, or was not, a written recommendation made by the State before the court, the record amply demonstrates the voluntary nature of the defendant’s plea. The trial court fulfilled each of the requirements of IC 1971, 35-4.1-1-3 (Burns Code Ed.), and asked numerous detailed questions to ascertain defendant’s knowledge of the rights involved and whether she intelligently waived the same. Moreover it adequately explained and the defendant has been empirically shown to have understood that her sentencing was not dependent upon a recommendation nor that it was likely that the court would follow any recommendation in lieu of its own prerogative. Under such circumstances, reversible error concerning a guilty plea simply cannot be predicated on whether a written recommendation was known to have existed by the defendant.
Finally, it should be realized that upon review of a post-conviction hearing the presumption is in favor of the trial court’s disposition. Sanderson v. State (1977), 266 Ind. 205, 361 N.E.2d 910. Thus, if the trial court is held not to have erred in its enforce*219ment of the required plea agreement procedure as stated by the majority the conviction must stand.
I, therefore, enter my dissent to the majority opinion.
NOTE-Reported at 370 N.E.2d 972.