Court Opinion

ID: 9739689
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:19:29.596287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:13.454711
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
dissenting.
I believe the public interest is served better by changing Rule 11(d), NDRCrimP, which provides the procedure for plea agreements, to include bargained-for sentence recommendations. Therefore, I dissent.
Thompson agreed to plead guilty in exchange for the prosecutor’s sentence recommendation of six years. The sentencing judge did not follow the prosecutor’s recommendation, however, and sentenced Thompson to ten years’ imprisonment. Thompson now argues that he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea.
The majority answers Thompson’s argument by finding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Thompson’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea. The trial court found that Thompson “was fully aware of his rights and no binding agreement had been entered into between the parties.” Ante at 318.
The Michigan Supreme Court was faced with this issue in People v. Killebrew, 416 Mich. 189, 330 N.W.2d 834 (1982). Basing its decision on the defendant’s perspective of the plea bargain, the court held that after rejecting the prosecutor’s recommendation, the sentencing court then must give the defendant the opportunity to affirm or withdraw his or her guilty plea. The court stated:
“Although the prosecutorial ‘recommendation’ would seem to inform the defendant of the consequences of his plea — that the prosecutor is merely suggesting a sentence and that the judge is not bound to follow the recommendation — the truth is that most defendants rely on the prosecutor’s ability to secure the sentence when offering a guilty plea. This is true even when the court specifically admonishes the defendant that it is not bound by the prosecutor’s recommendation. All disclaimers that the court is not bound are often viewed as ceremonial incantations.
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“To most defendants, the distinction between a sentence agreement and a sentence recommendation is little more than a variation in nomenclature.” Id. 330 N.W.2d at 842.
The Killebrew approach, in my opinion, is more reasonable. If the sentencing judge accepts the prosecutor’s recommendation, then the defendant is bound by his or her guilty plea. If the judge rejects the recommendation, then the defendant may withdraw the guilty plea and exercise his or her constitutional right to a jury trial, or the defendant may affirm the guilty plea and accept the sentence imposed by the judge. Nothing, then, is lost by either side; at worst, the parties return to their positions before entering into the plea bargain. Although rape has been called “one of the most personally humiliating of all crimes,” Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 200, 93 S.Ct. 375, 382, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972), the charge against the defendant is not at issue here. Rather, any defendant should be able to reevaluate his or her decision to plead guilty when the judge rejects the prosecutor’s recommendation.
Rule 11(d), NDRCrimP, provides, in relevant part:
“(4) Rejection of a Plea Agreement. If the court rejects the plea agreement, the court, on the record, shall inform the parties of this fact, advise the defendant personally in open court or on a showing of good cause, in camera, that the court is not bound by the plea agreement, afford the defendant the opportunity to then withdraw the plea, and advise the defendant that if the defendant persists in a guilty plea the disposition of the case may be less favorable to the defendant than that contemplated by the plea agreement.”
Rule 11(d) should be changed to include the court’s rejection of a bargained-for sentence recommendation under this procedure.
*321Although we addressed a similar situation in State v. Werre, 453 N.W.2d 826 (N.D.1990), the defendant in that ease argued that he was guaranteed the sentence recommended by the prosecutor. This court held only that the record did not support the defendant’s assertion and that the sentencing court’s rejection of the recommendation was not a manifest injustice under Rule 32(d)(1), NDRCrimP. ■ I do not dispute that our rules dictate the result reached in Werre and by the majority here. I, however, would take this opportunity to change Rule 11(d) and what I believe is an unreasonable and unnecessary result.