Court Opinion

ID: 9546791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:35:18.032188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:51.165634
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Pletnikoff stands convicted of the first degree sexual assault of Sherrie Johnson, based on his plea of nolo contendere. In my view, the rule of collateral estoppel applies to this conviction and warrants summary judgment against him in the present civil action.1
In reaching this conclusion, I acknowledge that under federal law an exception is made to the rule of collateral estoppel for convictions based on pleas of nolo conten-dere. However, Alaska law is significantly different from federal law on the subject of nolo contendere pleas and these differences justify rejecting the exception to the rule of collateral estoppel.
The Alaska Rules are significantly different from the Federal Rules on the question of the effect of a plea of nolo contendere. Rule 410 of the Federal Rules of Evidence explicitly states that nolo contendere pleas are inadmissible while Alaska Rule of Evidence 410 does not. Further, Federal Criminal Rule 11(b) provides that a defendant may plead nolo contendere only with the consent of the court and only then after the court has given “due consideration of the views of the parties and the interest of the public in the effective administration of justice.” Alaska has no counterpart to this provision. Moreover, Federal Criminal Rule 11(e)(6)(B) explicitly makes inadmissible a plea of nolo contendere. Alaska Criminal Rule 11(e)(6) contains no such provision. Finally, Federal Evidence Rule *980803(22) provides that “[ejvidence of a final judgment, entered after a trial or upon a plea of guilty (but not upon a plea of nolo contendere), adjudging a person guilty of a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year” is not hearsay. This suggests by implication that a conviction based upon a plea of nolo contendere is hearsay. By contrast the Alaska Evidence Rules contain no exception to the hearsay rule for judgments of previous conviction. The commentary explains that this omission was made advisedly, since the effect of a judgment of conviction is properly a subject governed by the rules of collateral estoppel, rather than the rules of evidence. See Alaska Evidence Rule 803 and commentary at 390 (1988).
As a matter of decisional law, Alaska law also differs from federal law concerning nolo pleas. In the federal system the trial judge has the discretion to reject a nolo plea. In Alaska a defendant may plead nolo rather than guilty as a matter of right. Miller v. State, 617 P.2d 516, 518 (Alaska 1980); Lowell v. State, 574 P.2d 1281, 1285 (Alaska 1978).
Permitting a defendant to plead nolo rather than guilty is, in the federal system, seen as a benefit to the defendant because it reduces the likelihood of the defendant’s being held liable in subsequent civil litigation. The nolo plea is thus a concession. It is afforded only where the defendant deserves it or when other circumstances indicate its desirability:
A defendant who desires to plead nolo contendere will commonly want to avoid pleading guilty because the plea of guilty can be introduced as an admission in subsequent civil litigation. Th[] [sic] prosecution may oppose the plea of nolo contendere because it wants a definite resolution of the defendant’s guilty [sic] or innocence either for correctional purposes or for reasons of subsequent litigation. ABA Standards Relating to Pleas of Guilty, § 1.1(b) Commentary at 16-18 (Approved Draft, 1968). Under subdivision (b) of the new rule [Fed.R.Cr.P. 11(b)], the balancing of the interests is left to the trial judge, who is mandated to take into account the larger public interest in the effective administration of justice.
1975 Committee Note to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11, set out in 8 Moore’s Federal Practice, Rules of Criminal Procedure, ¶ 11.01[4] at 11-9 (1986).
The ABA standards referred to by the Committee add the following: “To some degree, the tests for determining whether to accept the nolo plea are similar to those for granting charge and sentence concessions (see standard 14-1.8(a)). Acceptance of the nolo plea is a kind of concession, as it relieves the defendant of the choice between trial and pleading guilty.” Ill ABA Standards for Criminal Justice § 14-1.1(b) Commentary at 14.12 (2d ed. 1980). The tests referred to in this Commentary for granting charge and sentence concessions are:
It is proper for the court to grant charge and sentence concessions to defendants who enter a plea of guilty or nolo conten-dere when consistent with the protection of the public, the gravity of the offense, and the needs of the defendant, and when there is substantial evidence to establish that:
(i) the defendant is genuinely contrite and has shown a willingness to assume responsibility for his or her conduct;
(ii) the concessions will make possible alternative correctional measures which are better adapted to achieving protective, deterrent, or other purposes of correctional treatment, or will prevent undue harm to the defendant from the form of conviction;
(iii) the defendant, by making public trial unnecessary, has demonstrated genuine consideration for the victims of his or her criminal activity, by desiring either to make restitution or to prevent unseemly public scrutiny or embarrassment to them; or
(iv) the defendant has given or offered cooperation when such cooperation has resulted or may result in the successful prosecution of other offenders engaged *981in equally serious or more serious criminal conduct.
Id. at 14.40.
Taking it as given that in Alaska a defendant may plead nolo as a matter of right, it appears sound to give a narrow construction to the consequences of a nolo plea. The exception to the rule of collateral estoppel which is afforded a defendant who pleads nolo in the federal system may make sense in deserving cases, but there is little to recommend its application to all cases.2
That conclusion is implicit in the Standards for Criminal Justice of the American Bar Association. The Standards conclude, first, that the case for nolo pleas is not strong enough to support their use, nor is the case against them strong enough to oppose their use. Ill ABA Standards For Criminal Justice § 14.1.1(a) Commentary at 14.11 (2d ed. 1980).3 Second, that if nolo pleas are allowed in a particular jurisdiction, they should not be allowed without safeguards, foremost of which is that a defendant may plead nolo only with the consent of the court after due consideration of the views of the parties, the victims, and the interest of the public. Ill ABA Standards for Criminal Justice § 14-l.l(a) — (b) and Commentary at 14.11-12 (2d ed. 1980).
In Lowell, we held that convictions based on nolo pleas could be used for impeachment purposes. We also implicitly accepted a narrow view concerning the consequences of convictions based on nolo pleas:
[Tjhat the only forbidden consequence of a nolo plea is its use as an admission in a civil action, and that all other uses of the conviction are permissible as if the plea were of guilty, not nolo.
Lowell v. State, 574 P.2d 1281, 1285 (Alaska 1978).
I take this language literally. A nolo plea may not be used as an admission in a civil action. However, insofar as a nolo plea results in a conviction, the conviction may be used for any purpose for which any conviction based on a plea of guilty might be used.
*982It is reasonable to inquire as to what the function of a nolo plea is in Alaska if a conviction based on a nolo plea is not excepted from the rule of collateral estoppel. The answer is suggested in Miller v. State, 617 P.2d 516 (Alaska 1980). There the trial court first accepted, but later rejected, Miller’s plea of nolo contendere to misdemeanor child abuse. The trial court rejected the nolo plea because the defendant had continued to maintain his innocence in conversations with friends and associates. We reversed the trial court’s, rejection of the nolo plea, observing that even an innocent defendant might plead nolo: “The plea of nolo contendere has been viewed not as an express admission of guilt but as a consent by the defendant that he may be punished as if he were guilty and a prayer for leniency.” Miller, 617 P.2d at 518-19, quoting North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 35 n. 8, 91 S.Ct. 160, 166 n. 8, 27 L.Ed.2d 162, 170 n. 8 (1970).
Miller suggests that one benefit of the nolo plea is personal dignity. The defendant is allowed to maintain his innocence both publicly and privately while consenting to an adjudication of guilt. Thus Alaska law does not require a public confession, which, to some, entails great humiliation, as the price for dispensing with a criminal trial. Since the nolo plea is available to all defendants, that, in my view, should be the only benefit of the procedure.

. Under the modern law of judgments a conviction based on a plea of guilty collaterally estops a convicted defendant from relitigating the essential elements of the crime of which he stands convicted. Municipality of Anchorage v. Hitachi Cable Ltd., 547 F.Supp. 633, 641-44 (D. Alaska 1982); United States v. Podell, 572 F.2d 31, 35 (2d Cir.1978). See also 18 U.S.C. § 3580(e) (1982) which provides:
A conviction of a defendant for an offense involving the act giving rise to restitution under this section shall estop the defendant from denying the essential allegations of that offense in any subsequent Federal civil proceeding or State civil proceeding, to the extent consistent with State law, brought by the victim.
This section, which is part of the Federal Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982, is said to be merely a codification of the general rule of collateral estoppel, United States v. Palma, 760 F.2d 475, 479 (3rd Cir.1985).
The essential elements of sexual assault in the first degree are an act of sexual penetration with another person, without the consent of that person. AS 11.41.410(a)(1). Those are also the essential elements of the tort of rape. They should, by application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel, be regarded as established by Plet-nikoff s conviction. Collateral estoppel does not apply where the defendant lacks incentive to contest the initial litigation, Municipality of Anchorage, 547 F.Supp. at 643, a circumstance which does not exist in a serious criminal case. Scott v. Robertson, 583 P.2d 188, 192 (Alaska 1978).

. Since a defendant may plead nolo as a matter of right, guilty pleas are virtually non-existent in felony cases in Alaska. My review of the most recent volume of the Alaska Reporter (747-751 P.2d) shows no cases in which a guilty plea was used.

. The pros and cons of the nolo plea are summarized in the Commentary as follows:
Since an accused is either guilty of the offense charged or not guilty, there seems to be, logically speaking, no room for a plea "in between.” It is, of course, easy to understand why a person guilty of an offense should prefer to plead nolo contendere instead of pleading guilty, thus avoiding being estopped from denying the facts to which he interposed the plea in a subsequent civil proceeding. But obviously, the fact that the plea has certain advantages for the guilty lawbreaker is not a sufficient justification for its existence.
It can even be perceived why under certain rather exceptional circumstances a person innocent of the offense charged should prefer the plea of nolo contendere to a plea of not guilty, and the courts occasionally give hints as to such circumstances. Such possible motivations have been said to be: to save expense and avoid notoriety; to avoid unpleasant publicity; to avoid a hostile jury; and to waive contest obviously hopeless because of lack of witnesses. These considerations do not seem to be very compelling or worthy of protection in view of the fact that the public at large has as much interest in the conviction of the guilty as in the acquittal of the innocent. Because of its doubtful usefulness, the plea has been abolished by statute in some jurisdictions, while in others it has practically disappeared by this use [sic]. It enjoyed a partial revival during the prohibition era, when it was pleaded to charges of violations of the liquor law, and it is applied with increasing frequency in anti-trust prosecutions. Only if it can be shown that the plea of nolo contendere serves a real and useful function in the administration of justice, can its continued use be considered as justified.
So far as logic and clearness is concerned, the complete abolition of the plea could not be considered as a great loss to our legal system. There are, however, practical considerations which allegedly speak for a retention of the plea. They are said to exist in the type of wrong which “is not malum in se, but rather malum prohibitum” and "peculiarly of an economic nature.” In such a case, it is argued, the acceptance of the plea constitutes realistic policy because it dispenses with lengthy and expensive trials. This has been said to be especially true in anti-trust prosecutions. ...
Ill ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, § 14-1.1(a) Commentary at 14.10-11 (quoting Annot. 152 A.L.R. 253, 295-296 (1944)).