Court Opinion

ID: 9677580
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:55:47.340541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:56.907633
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(dissenting).
As I understand the undisputed facts, until the escape charge- pending against defendant was disposed of, the penitentiary officials would keep him in solitary confinement,' without" privileges, in a bare cell.
. It does not seem to me it is fair for the state to put this sort of pressure on the defendant. Certainly, we would not condone a policy of, say, giving, a defendant who had charges against him' quarter rations until the charges were disposed of, or keeping him in complete darkness, or without clothing. A defendant pleading guilty under these . circumstances could understand full well he would be sentenced on the guilty plea and also thát. he .would be relieved of the oppressive conditions. To that extent he would be acting in full awareness of the surrounding factors and likely consequences, but it does not seem to me to follow that the plea is thereby voluntary. It seems to me quite evident that it would not be.
In the Langdeau v. South Dakota case relied on in the principal opinion (CCA 8), 446 F.2d 507, the facts were that the defendant made known to the trial court his dissatisfaction with the jail conditions. The trial court went into the matter. fully and offered to give the defendant a jury trial. It was after this that defendant said it would not be necessary because he wanted to plead guilty. Also, defendant had benefit of counsel. Under these circumstances the court found, and properly so, that defendant made a deliberate and voluntary choice to plead guilty.
Nothing of this sort appears in the case before us. Defendant did not have counsel and the record does not show what hap*491pened at the time of the guilty plea, except what defendant testified to at the present 27.26 hearing about it, where he said he pleaded guilty “mostly to get out of solitary.” The trial court also found as a fact that defendant asked a guard the best way to get out of solitary and “was told to plead guilty and they would let him out.” Defendant was in solitary 90 days before he pleaded guilty on December 13, 1960. He could not have gotten a trial sooner than the Februrary 1961 term, which would have meant at least another 90 days in solitary. On the undisputed facts, the conduct which the state engaged in was not the kind which could properly be imposed on a defendant who is presumed to be innocent and is making up his mind whether to stand trial or plead guilty. A defendant pleading guilty in this situation knows what he is doing, all right, but it cannot be said he is not being improperly influenced.
The fact it has been held that pleading guilty to avoid the possibility of the death penalty does not make the plea involuntary does not meet the point raised here. As stated in Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 752, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 1471, 25 L.Ed.2d 747, there is a “mutuality of advantage” between the state and the defendant in those cases, in precluding “the possibility of the maximum penalty authorized by law.” Each side gives up or gains something. In the case before us, there is no mutuality of advantage to the solitary confinement. The advantage of the increased pressure is all on the side of the state.
The trial court found defendant failed to sustain the burden of proving that the solitary confinement policy made his guilty plea involuntary. In my opinion, there is no support for this finding on the undisputed facts before us. As pointed out above, the solitary confinement policy has an inherent extra coercion to it, above the pressure which inevitably accompanies any prosecution, whether defendant is awaiting trial in or out of confinement. There is no way it can be said this improper influence did not enter into the guilty plea to some degree, and if I am correct in this, then it cannot be said defendant did not carry his burden, especially when the state presented no evidence to the contrary.
I respectfully dissent and would hold the guilty plea should be set aside in the escape case, and, in turn, this would require a new trial in the burglary case where punishment was assessed under the second offender act on the erroneous assumption there was a valid plea of guilty in the escape case.
ORDER
HOLMAN, Presiding Judge.
On motion of appellant, the order of April 10, 1972, overruling appellant’s Motion for Rehearing and sustaining appellant’s Motion to Transfer to Court en Banc is hereby set aside.
Motion of appellant to withdraw his Motion for Rehearing or, in the alternative, Motion to Transfer to Court en Banc, is sustained. Said motion is accordingly withdrawn and mandate is ordered to issue.