Court Opinion

ID: 9692717
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:01:40.200126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:36.353303
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
¶ 69. dissenting. Nine years ago, in another appeal before this Court, I stated my belief that the same mentally retarded defendant was incompetent to waive his constitutional rights. See State v. Cleary, 161 Vt. 403, 414-15, 641 A.2d 102, 109 (1994) (Johnson, J., dissenting). For reasons similar to those stated in my earlier opinion, I do not believe that defendant was competent to waive his rights and plead guilty to the charged offenses in this case. Nothing in the record suggests otherwise. Indeed, the competency court’s own findings indicate that defendant still suffers from the same life-long mental deficiencies as in the past. But, even assuming that the court was correct in determining that defendant was marginally competent to enter a guilty plea, the colloquy at the plea hearing was woefully inadequate for the trial court to assure itself that defendant had entered a knowing and intelligent guilty plea. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 70. Defendant is a mentally retarded man with an IQ (intelligence quotient) of sixty-five, placing him in the bottom two percent of the population. Although his functional abilities have improved in some areas, his mental deficiencies have remained constant over the years. According to the experts, his mental capacity is approximately that of a ten-year-old, and he has the emotional level of even a younger child. His greatest deficiencies are in language and abstract thinking. Like many persons with mental retardation, defendant has the tendency to mask his handicap by indicating that he understands more than he actually does and by telling others, particularly authority figures, what he believes they want to hear. See State v. Lockwood, 160 Vt. 547, 569, 632 A.2d 665, 668 (1993) (Johnson, J., dissenting) (to overcome their limited communication skills, mentally retarded persons may answer “yes” when they think questioner is looking for “yes”). In finding defendant to be marginally competent in this case, Judge Davenport acknowledged that defendant is significantly impaired in language-based areas of understanding, that his greatest deficiencies are in abstract thinking, that he had no understanding of how a jury trial functioned, and that although the experts were divided on whether defendant was incompetent, they agreed that the competency question was a “close call.”
¶ 71. It is generally recognized that at least a basic level of abstract thinking is necessary to knowingly and intelligently enter a guilty plea. A defendant considering a guilty plea must weigh the potential benefits and risks of going to trial, testifying, confronting his accuser, and raising certain defenses. See Godinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389, 398 (1993). *167Although there is no heightened standard of competency to plead guilty rather than stand trial, there is a heightened standard for pleading guilty in the sense that the trial court must satisfy itself that the waiver of constitutional rights is knowing and voluntary. Id. at 400-01.
¶ 72. When, as in this case, the person pleading guilty is mentally retarded and only marginally competent, there must be a heightened scrutiny of the plea to assure that it has been knowingly and intelligently entered. In such situations, a routine presentation of yes/no questions is unlikely to achieve that purpose. See United States v. Masthers, 539 F.2d 721, 728-29 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (“standard Rule 11 colloquy may prove an inadequate measure of the validity of a plea proffered by a defendant of questionable mental competence”); Osborne v. Thompson, 481 F. Supp. 162, 169 (M.D. Tenn. 1979) (routine questioning in Rule 11 colloquy “is particularly questionable when the defendant is of limited intelligence,” and thus if “court is on notice that the defendant’s mental faculties may be impaired, the court has a responsibility to delve further to determine the defendant’s comprehension”); cf. State v. Pollard, 163 Vt. 199, 207, 657 A.2d 185, 190 (1995) (given defendant’s acknowledged mental problems, trial court should have engaged defendant in full-scale inquiry concerning his experience, motives, and understanding of his undertaking in waiving counsel). Indeed, as we have noted, the normally difficult task of accurately assessing a defendant’s capacity to understand his rights when charged with a crime becomes daunting “when the circumstances include a diagnosis of mental retardation.” In re J.M., 172 Vt. 61, 68, 769 A.2d 656, 662 (2001).
¶73. The situation in this case is remarkably similar to the circumstances in State v. Thompson, 167 Vt. 383, 387,708 A.2d 192, 194 (1998), where we determined that the trial court’s acceptance of a mentally limited defendant’s no-contest plea following a brief Rule 11 colloquy was plain error. In that case, the court found the defendant, who had an IQ below seventy, to be competent after hearing the examining psychiatrist testify that he was “marginally competent.” At a later status conference, in response to questioning by defense counsel, the defendant revealed his lack of understanding as to the role of the jury and how a jury trial functioned. We concluded as follows:
[Gjiven defense counsel’s continuing difficulty in communicating with his client, and the close question over whether defendant was competent to stand trial, it was imperative for the court at the status conference to assure that defendant fully understood the rights he would be waiving by entering his plea. Instead, the *168court accepted defendant’s no-contest plea after only a brief colloquy that hardly touched on the requirements of Rule 11(c).
... Considering that the court was fully aware of defendant’s mental limitations, its failure to engage defendant in the required Rule 11 colloquy undermines confidence in the outcome of the proceedings and thus was plain error.
Id. The same is true here. I agree with Justice Dooley both that a defendant need not demonstrate plain error in challenging on direct review the sufficiency of a Rule 11 colloquy, but that there was plain error in this instance, given defendant’s marginal competency and the lack of any in-depth inquiry into his understanding of the underlying facts or the nature and consequences of his plea.
¶ 74. After reading the information in this case, the trial court suggested that, because of defendant’s limitations, defense counsel should do the questioning at the plea hearing. The following colloquy, in its entirety, took place:
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Donald, I’m going to ask you a few questions. Alright. Do you understand what the charges are ... pending against you?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Okay. And have you had an opportunity to review the affidavit of [the police detective] that’s attached to those two charges?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Now, did Tod Hill read that affidavit to you?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: That was on Friday?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: And do you understand what’s in the affidavit of [the police detective]?
*169DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you understand, Donald, that by entering guilty pleas today, there won’t be any other proceedings other than the sentencing for you? Do you understand that?
DEFENDANT: I have had people tell me it’s better to do this. So I’ll do this.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you understand that you have the right to have a trial in front of 12 people?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you understand that you have the right to testify at that trial?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: And do you understand that you have the right for me to ask questions of PC, your mother, and other witnesses that the State would present?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you understand that by entering these guilty pleas this morning, you are going to give up the right to have that trial?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you have any questions at this time?
DEFENDANT: Not that I can think of.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you feel as though — well, do you feel well enough to go ahead this morning?
DEFENDANT: I’m just doing what people tell me to.
*170DEFENSE COUNSEL: Well, we need to know if this is what you want to do.
DEFENDANT: I want to get it over with.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Well, do you want to get it over with? Do you want to give up your right to your trial?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you understand what’s involved with the plea agreement? Have you had — You and I have gone over this plea agreement?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: And do you feel as though you understand what the terms of the plea agreement are?
DEFENDANT: From what you told me I do.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you understand that at your sentencing the Judge could sentence you up to ten years to serve and 20 years for a maximum?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Can you do me afavor, Donald, and at this time can you tell me what that ten years mean?
DEFENDANT: Minimum. Minimum and maximum. Minimum. And 20 is the maximum.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you understand what this provision that we reserve the right to argue for less at sentencing?
DEFENDANT: What was the question?
*171DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you understand what this — do you understand what it means for me to argue for less at sentencing?
DEFENDANT: Yeah. You said you could try to get it lower.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: That’s right. Is anybody forcing you to enter into this plea agreement, Donald?
DEFENDANT: No.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Are you doing this voluntarily?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Anybody made any other promises to you?
DEFENDANT: No.
THE COURT: Mr. Cleary, do you have any questions you’d like to ask me about this?
DEFENDANT: I need some kind of help, and jail won’t help me.
THE COURT: Okay.
DEFENDANT: That’s all I can say.
THE COURT: We can discuss this at. the sentencing hearing ' that’s coming up. Are you satisfied with the help that [defense counsel] has given you?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay, I take it... that your client is conceding that there is a factual basis for the charges, at least as amended?
*172DEFENSE COUNSEL: Yes, your Honor. We would be.
THE COURT: Mr. Cleary, you read over the affidavits or the affidavits were read over to you?
DEFENDANT: Yes.
¶ 75. This colloquy reveals that, despite his marginal competence, defendant was asked almost exclusively yes/no questions that failed to probe the level of his understanding of his guilty plea. The only area in which defense counsel elicited any evidence of defendant’s understanding was the length of the recommended sentence. Almost all of defendant’s responses were a simple “yes,” and the ones that were not suggested that defendant was pleading guilty simply because others had told him that he should do so. The judge at the competency hearing found that defendant had no understanding of the role of a jury, and yet none of the questions in the colloquy were aimed at assuring the court that defendant in fact understood how a jury trial would function, and thus what rights he was waiving.
¶ 76. Nor did the trial court address defendant personally to determine that he understood the factual basis for the charged offenses, including the elements of the offenses that the State would have to prove to convict him at trial. See State v. Yates, 169 Vt. 20, 24, 726 A.2d 483, 487 (1999) (V.R.Cr.P. 11(f) requires trial court to personally address defendant to assure that he is admitting to and understands “the facts as they relate to the law for all elements of the charge or charges to which the defendant has pleaded”); cf. State v. Morrissette, 170 Vt. 569, 571, 743 A.2d 1091, 1093 (1999) (mem.) (given straightforward nature of DWI charge and lack of any evidence that defendant was incompetent, there was substantial compliance with Rule 11 based on defendant’s acknowledgment that he had read and understood documents that included his stipulation to factual basis for charged offense). It was particularly crucial for the court to do so in this case because the record indicated that defendant had suggested to police that he and his mother had had consensual sexual encounters in the past, and that she had consented to his conduct that led to the charged offenses.
¶ 77. Defendant is a mentally retarded man accused of raping his mother. Notwithstanding the unanimous recognition by all concerned of his significant deficiencies in communicating and understanding abstract concepts, the trial court proceeded with a Rule 11 colloquy that was routine in every respect, except that defense counsel, rather than the court, asked the questions. Most likely, the trial court was wary, given *173defendant’s pronounced mental limitations, that its own inquiry might stray from any rehearsed colloquy between defendant and his attorney. In any event, the court’s disinclination to engage defendant in a conversation underscores defendant’s perceived incompetence and makes a mockery of Rule ll’s requirement of a personal colloquy between the court and the defendant. I believe that there was a total failure in this case to comply with both 11(f) and 11(c). Because the responses elicited from defendant during the colloquy gave no indication that he understood the rights he was waiving, I would reverse the conviction and, at minimum, remand the matter for another plea hearing.