Court Opinion

ID: 9754617
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:07:54.243001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:55.800595
License: Public Domain

Concurring Statement by
McEWEN, P.J.E.:
¶ 1 The author of the persuasive Opinion of the Majority has provided a perceptive expression of rationale, and I agree that the decisions of Commonwealth v. Forbes, 450 Pa. 185, 299 A.2d 268 (1973) and Commonwealth v. Randolph, 553 Pa. 224, 718 A.2d 1242 (1998), require this Court to conclude that appellant must be permitted to withdraw his guilty plea. See generally: Commonwealth v. Rish, 414 Pa.Super. 220, 606 A.2d 946 (1992). I write separately, however, to reiterate what are now but dim echoes of my conviction that a mere assertion of innocence, such as was presented in this case, should not by itself constitute a fair and just reason to withdraw a guilty plea. See: Commonwealth v. Rish, id. at 948 (McEwen, J., concurring); Commonwealth v. Cole, 387 Pa.Super. 328, 564 A.2d 203, 208 (1989) (McEwen, J., concurring) (“[A] pre-sentence assertion of innocence may compose the required ‘fair and just reason’ provided that the totality of circumstances reflected by the record does not establish otherwise.” [emphasis supplied]). Thus it is that I agree with the expression of this Court in Commonwealth v. Dicken, 895 A.2d 50, 52 (Pa.Super.2006), appeal denied, 589 Pa. 718, 907 A.2d 1101 (2006), that “a defendant’s bald assertion of inno*1289cence will not constitute a fair and just reason for allowing withdrawal of guilty plea.”8
¶ 2 The facts of the present record do not, in my view, impel the conclusion that fairness and justice are served by permitting appellant to withdraw his plea of guilty. Appellant was aware, prior to the entry of his plea of guilty, that the victim was making efforts to contact the authorities to amend the statement she had given to the State Police, but he proceeded, nonetheless, to declare by his plea that he was guilty of criminal trespass. Moreover, the subsequent request of appellant to withdraw his plea, while ostensibly based upon his assertion of innocence, was in fact grounded upon his claim that when he pleaded guilty to trespass he “didn’t really know the severity of’9 the charge to which he had pleaded guilty — an assertion vastly different from a claim that he did not know the substance of the charge. Thus, as I see it, appellant’s assertion of innocence was but a contrived ploy, tantamount to the incantation of “magic words,” all of which, in my view, should fall short of a fair and just reason to warrant the withdrawal of the guilty plea.
¶ 3 In any event, bound by the prevailing legal standards for presentence withdrawal of a guilty plea, I concur in the decision to vacate the judgment of sentence and remand for trial.

. It bears mention that the Majority, in support of its conclusion that appellant’s assertion of innocence does constitute a fair and just reason for withdrawal of the plea, cites the decision of this Court in Commonwealth v. Clinger, 833 A.2d 792 (Pa.Super.2003), which was penned by the author of this Concurring Statement. However, the Clinger defendant’s assertion of innocence to the charge of conspiracy to commit third degree murder composed a "fair and just reason" for withdrawal of the guilty plea because under the law it is impossible to commit conspiracy to commit third degree murder. Clinger, supra, 833 A.2d at 795. Therefore, the defendant obviously “pleaded guilty to an offense that did not exist and, therefore, a crime that did not occur,” id., which, of course, rendered the guilty plea void ab initio.

. N.T., May 17, 2006, p. 12.