Court Opinion

ID: 9584651
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:51:10.509617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:04.629337
License: Public Domain

Smith, Judge,
concurring specially.
As the other opinions indicate, the difficulty here is with the lack of any record of a factual basis for a guilty plea. There is no transcript of the plea hearing, although there is a transcript of the hearing on the motion to withdraw the plea. I agree that there is nothing in the record to show the trial court made an inquiry at the plea hearing as to the factual basis for the plea, and I further agree that the record does not otherwise contain a factual basis for the plea or an indication that the trial court was aware of a factual basis for it. However, I do not fully agree with the assertion in Judge Beasley’s special concurrence that such a deficiency “could not be cured at the hearing on the motion to withdraw the plea.”
While it is true that the state could not add a factual basis at the motion hearing if there had been none at the plea hearing, I know of no reason why either the state or the trial court could not properly make a record at that later hearing of a factual basis that existed at the plea hearing and of which the trial court was aware at that time.
If the transcript of the motion hearing contained such a factual basis, either established or existing at the time of the plea hearing, or *162if the written plea statement signed by the defendant and his attorney showed such a basis, I would vote to affirm the trial court. Since there is nothing of this kind in the transcript of the motion hearing or elsewhere in the record, I concur.
Decided November 30, 1993.
Lloyd J. Matthews, for appellant.
Keith C. Martin, Solicitor, Leigh A. Moore, Assistant Solicitor, for appellee.