Court Opinion

ID: 9750937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:49:34.186788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:29.433419
License: Public Domain

HERRMANN, Justice
(dissenting)
I would reverse.
Prior to the taking of the defendant’s guilty plea, the Justice of the Peace made an inaccurate statement from the Bench. In the course of advising the defendant as *690to the consequences of the guilty plea, the Justice of the Peace stated that the defendant’s driver’s license would be suspended for a year. This was misleading and misadvice. He should have stated that the license would be revoked for a year. 21 Del.C. § 2732(3).
In ordinary usage, there is a significant difference in meaning between the word “suspended” and the word “revoked.” A “suspended” privilege is temporarily withdrawn; a “revoked” privilege is annulled, abrogated, or cancelled. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. This difference in meaning was especially important to this defendant who was without counsel and much preoccupied with the necessity of obtaining a limited “work license” to safeguard his livelihood; and who, just minutes earlier, had been told by the State Trooper the name of the official to whom an application for such limited license could be made.
A judge has the duty of being precisely accurate when, in the process of accepting a guilty plea, he undertakes to advise the defendant as to any consequence of such plea.* There is no room at that stage of the proceedings for any judicial statement that is inaccurate and may be misleading. Compare Brown v. State, 250 A.2d 503 (Del.Supr.Ct., decided January 31, 1969); McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (decided April 2, 1969). Any doubt as to the misleading effect of an inaccuracy by the Judge should be resolved in favor of the defendant who seeks to withdraw his guilty plea and have his day in cour:.
The Superior Court stated in this case: “Regardless of what they (State Trooper and Justice of the Peace) said, the defendant had no reasonable basis for placing reliance on their speculations.” I cannot agree with that premise, insofar as the Judge was concerned.
For these reasons, it is my view that the judgment below should be reversed.

 Directive 19 to all Justices of the Peace provides:
“All Justices of the Peace are requested forthwith, in all alleged motor vehicle violations which might involve the revoeation or suspension of the defendant’s license on a finding or plea of guilty to advise the defendant of this fact prior to accepting his or her plea.”