Court Opinion

ID: 9566543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:40:44.522817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:24.046279
License: Public Domain

MOELLER, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in that portion of the opinion which holds that the appellate courts of this state will not ordinarily consider requests to withdraw from plea agreements that have not first been presented to the trial court. However, I also agree with the majority that we should not apply that rule in this particular case. To do so would require the trial court to follow Phillips and set aside the plea agreement, a result which is clearly inappropriate.
It is on the merits of the voluntariness issue that I find myself in disagreement with the majority. I believe the plea agreement, including the restitution provision, is *483clearly voluntary, that Rule 17.1 and Rule 17.2 of the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure have been fully complied with, that the defendant has no grounds to have his plea set aside, that there is no need for a “relevancy” hearing, and that the convictions and sentences should be affirmed in all respects.
A.R.S. § 13-603(C) requires the defendant to make restitution for the first degree murder, the armed robbery, and the first degree burglary to which he pled guilty. This requirement of law was communicated in writing to the defendant and to his counsel in the written plea agreement which they both read and signed. By signing the plea agreement the defendant expressly consented to pay restitution as part of his sentence. Additionally, at the plea proceedings in open court, the trial judge again personally advised the defendant of the restitution requirement and the defendant again expressly stated that he understood that restitution would be required. No more should be required to demonstrate the voluntariness of the plea agreement.
After entering into a plea agreement such as the one in issue, the parties are entitled to a restitution hearing on the amount of restitution and the manner of its payment. If error occurs at such a hearing, it is reviewable by appeal. Nothing remotely suggests involuntariness here, except the overly broad language of Phillips. I cannot divine how a defendant can validly plead guilty, leaving it to subsequent proceedings to determine whether he gets probation or fifty years in prison, but cannot validly plead guilty leaving the amount of restitution to be determined in later proceedings.
As the majority opinion notes, both Lukens and Phillips involved unusual factual circumstances which are not present here. Phillips could have been decided on the basis that, absent agreement, restitution may not be ordered for damages having no causal relationship to the crime to which the defendant pled. Lukens could have been decided on the basis that, absent agreement, restitution may not be ordered in an amount exceeding the statutory limit of the theft offense to which the defendant pled. While the majority opinion in this case has the desirable effect of sharply limiting both Phillips and Lukens, it also has the effect of introducing a new, relatively undefined type of “relevancy litigation” and a new concept of divisible plea agreements. The new litigation and the new concept should not be necessary to a proper resolution of the voluntariness issue.
I was not a member of the court when either Phillips or Lukens was decided. I am mindful that precedents of the court should not lightly be overruled and certainly not for reasons so inconsequential as a change of personnel on the court. We now have enough experience with Phillips to know that it is creating great mischief in Arizona’s criminal justice system. The instant case is but one example of that mischief. In an effort to be scrupulously fair, the court in Phillips announced a wide-ranging rule which has now proven to be both unworkable and unnecessary. I perceive no infirmity whatsoever under either the constitution or Rule 17 in imposing restitution upon a defendant who has been advised that the law requires it, who has agreed to it, and who has the right to have a hearing relative to the amount and manner of its payment. For these reasons, I respectfully suggest that we should revisit Phillips now and withdraw the broad rule there announced, rather than attempt to limit its effect in a piecemeal fashion.