Court Opinion

ID: 9567903
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:58:51.201428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:22:23.439259
License: Public Domain

BENCH, Judge
(dissenting):
¶29 In the typical case, the trial court must apprise the defendant of all the Rule 11 rights he or she waives by entering a plea before trial. See Utah R.Crim. P. 11(e); State v. Gibbons, 740 P.2d 1309, 1313-14 (Utah 1987). Here, however, defendant entered his guilty plea midtrial. Defendant has already been granted the right to a speedy trial before an impartial jury. As the trial court observed, “Since defendant’s trial had already started without any complaint about its ‘speediness’ or its ‘publicness,’ and the jury [was] selected without any complaints about ‘impartiality,’ defendant had already received those rights.” I believe the trial court has strictly complied with all the relevant Rule 11 requirements.
¶30 The Utah Supreme Court previously chastised this court for taking a “rigid view” of its strict compliance test. See State v. Maguire, 830 P.2d 216, 218 n. 2 (Utah 1991). As noted by the trial court, a rigid application of all the Rule 11 provisions in this case would only confuse the defendant. It would be wrong, for example, to suggest that defendant has some entitlement to another speedy trial before another impartial jury when accepting his guilty plea midtrial. The trial court therefore modified the colloquy normally used to insure that defendant entered his plea knowingly and voluntarily, and the court so found.
¶ 31 The Utah Supreme Court has also stated that complying with Rule 11 should not be a thoughtless, mechanical recitation. See id. at 218; State v. Abeyta, 852 P.2d 993, 996 (Utah 1993). Yet the trial court in this case is faulted for being thoughtful and not sufficiently mechanical. In the hearing on defendant’s Motion to Withdraw the Plea, the trial court commented, “[Mjaybe I’ll never let anyone enter a plea in the middle of trial again. I surely wish right now, ... that I had never permitted [defendant] to an exception of my usual rule of allowing no pleas after the jury is summoned.” Other trial courts, in trying to comply with today’s decision, may take the same mechanical approach and thereby adversely affect the administration of justice.
¶ 32 My colleagues treat this case like a pretrial guilty plea, holding that because the trial court did not strictly comply with every Rule 11 provision, defendant is entitled to withdraw his plea. I am unwilling to so blindly apply the strict compliance test to guilty pleas entered during trial. I therefore find no error in the taking of defendant’s plea and would affirm the trial court’s judgment.