Court Opinion

ID: 9419741
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:20.703776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:20.375564
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
dissenting.
I agree with nay brother Murphy that- the judgment should be reversed and join substantially in his opinion.
My conclusion rests squarely upon the fact, as I understand the record and the law of New York, that under that law a withdrawn plea of guilty is admissible in evidence against the accused at his later trial. People v. Steinmetz, 240 N. Y. 411, 148 N. E. 597. I have heretofore expressed my reasons for thinking that such a procedure involves a species of self-incrimination. Wood v. United States, 75 U. S. App. D. C. 274, 128 F. 2d 265. That question however has not been determined here, although it has been held on nonconstitutional grounds that in a federal court a withdrawn plea of guilty is not admissible. Kercheval v. United States, 274 U. S. 220. Nor has this Court decided whether such a procedure followed in a state court would be in violation of any constitutional provision.
In the setting of the facts in this case the significance of the New York rule is that the rule itself made it impossible for the full effects of petitioner’s invalid plea of guilty to be wiped out even through a successful motion for withdrawal, had one been made by petitioner’s attorney after his appearance in the cause following the plea and shortly before sentence.
It is not at all certain that the motion would have been. successful. Had it been made and granted, petitioner by the State’s law would have been confronted with the necessity of overcoming by proof the incriminating effect of his prior plea. His burden of defense thus increased not only would have been greater than if the invalid plea had not been made. It would have gone far to destroy the presumption of innocence to which- he was entitled until otherwise and lawfully proved guilty. Finally his lawyer *92presumably would have been cognizant of these facts. Imagination need not be stretched to believe that even the most competent attorney, confronted with such a situation, might have chosen to advise against moving to withdraw the plea rather than undertaking the heavy burden of meeting it by proof at the trial.
In my opinion the damage done by the original invalid plea was not removed by the attorney’s eleventh-hour entry nor could it have been at that time, fully and effectively, in view of the existing state of the law and the facts. Accordingly, I think there was no effective waiver through the late entrance of counsel and his hampered advice, which as I understand is the only basis for the Court’s decision. There was no choice but Hobson’s.'