Court Opinion

ID: 9799512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 07:14:33.089286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:53.867407
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
¶ 26. dissenting. This case is fundamentally about two promises that petitioner and his lawyer allege were made to induce petitioner to plead guilty: (1) that he would be released in time to be with his child for her first birthday; and (2) that he would be able to have contact with his wife and his other child. While both were facilitated by the plea agreement, neither of these alleged promises was in the agreement. With respect to the first, the plea agreement limited petitioner’s time to serve on the offenses covered by the agreement to forty days, a time that would expire before the child’s birthday, but petitioner had been convicted of at least one other offense not covered by the plea agreement, and the release time for this offense was controlled by the Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC). With respect to the second, the probation conditions did not prohibit the contact he wanted, but there was no restriction on the probation department’s ability to impose additional restrictions on petitioner under its supervisory power. Thus, the promises, if they existed, are outside the plea agreement. It is undisputed that the promises, if they existed, were not honored.
¶ 27. In his pro se PCR petition, petitioner made essentially two claims: that the trial court violated Vermont Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(d) by not inquiring whether the plea was voluntary “and not the result ... of promises apart from a plea agreement,” and that the State failed to honor the promises it had made. With respect to the latter, petitioner claimed: “[a]n unfulfilled prosecutor’s promise, which induces a guilty plea deprives the plea of its voluntary character; thus, a broken promise strikes at the very heart of the petitioner’s constitutional rights.”
*397¶ 28. I emphasize these points about the case not to suggest that we should redirect our decision from the plea procedure violation to the allegedly broken promises — the latter will be addressed by the trial court on remand — but instead to respond up front to the majority’s claim that we are addressing a technical violation of a procedural rule with no showing of prejudice. In fact, the applicable U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the constitutional right on which petitioner’s claims are made, Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969), and Rule 11, which implements Boykin, were fashioned to prevent the exact kind of controversy that is present here in a case where the failure is not a technicality and there is clear indication of prejudice. This is the main reason for this dissent.
¶ 29. There are actually three reasons why we should affirm the decision of the superior court, and reject the rationale of the majority, and each is sufficient alone to reach that result. The first is that this is actually a relatively simple ease, which the majority has made far more complex than it needs to be. In Boykin v. Alabama, the state trial court accepted a plea of guilty to a felony without determining whether the plea was voluntary. The U.S. Supreme Court held that “[i]t was error, plain on the face of the record, for the trial judge to accept petitioner’s guilty plea without an affirmative showing that it was intelligent and voluntary.” Id. at 242. The Court quoted with approval from an earlier case involving waiver of counsel: ‘“Presuming waiver from a silent record is impermissible. The record must show, or there must be an allegation and evidence which show, that an accused was offered counsel but intelligently and understanding^ rejected the offer.’ ” Id. (quoting Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 516 (1962)). It held that “the same standard must be applied to determining whether a guilty plea is voluntarily made.” Id. Because the plea involved a waiver of federal constitutional rights, the procedure required for waiver is established by federal law. Id. at 243. The Boykin rule is good law today. See 5 W. LaFave, et al., Criminal Procedure § 21.4(b), at 799-800 (3d ed. 2007) (“When a defendant tenders a plea of guilty ... in court at arraignment, one important responsibility of the court is to determine whether the plea is voluntary. Consistent with the Supreme Court’s standard as to what constitutes a voluntary plea, this means the court will inquire whether the tendered plea was the result of any threats or promises.”).
*398¶ 30. Although in the underlying criminal case the trial judge found the guilty plea to be voluntary, there is no support for that finding. Using the language of Boykin, the record does not “show,” and there is no “allegation and evidence which show,” that the guilty plea was not induced by promises. 395 U.S. at 242. Thus, just as the acceptance of the guilty plea in Boykin denied defendant due process of law, the acceptance of the plea here with no inquiry into whether the plea was voluntary denied petitioner due process of law. We should affirm the trial court on this directly applicable rationale.
¶ 31. Instead of resolving this case on the most direct and obvious rationale, the majority instead plunges into the thicket of Rule 11 and reaches the wrong result, making law in the process that undermines the purpose and substance of Rule 11(d). While my first point is that this analysis is unnecessary, my second point is that it is wrong. A proper understanding of what constitutes “substantial compliance” with Rule 11(d) reaches the superior court’s result rather than the majority’s.
¶ 32. Rule 11 has three major requirements that serve as prerequisites for acceptance of a plea of guilty and entering a judgment on that plea, and each requirement is stated in a separate section of the rule. The first, embodied in subsection (c), requires the court to provide the defendant with critical information and determine that defendant understands the information to ensure that in pleading guilty, defendant makes a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right to a trial. The second, embodied in subsection (d), requires the court to determine that a guilty plea is “voluntary and not the result of force or threats or of promises apart from a plea agreement” based on “addressing the defendant personally in open court.” The third, contained in subsection (f), requires the court to determine that there is a factual basis for the plea. This case involves compliance with the requirement of subsection (d).
¶ 33. Subsections (c) and (d) of Rule 11 were adopted in large part to implement Boykin. See Reporter’s Notes, V.R.Cr.R 11 (“Rule 11(c) and (d) carry forward in standardized form procedures developed and approved by the Vermont courts to meet the requirement of Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969), that a plea of guilty not be accepted unless the record shows that such plea was knowingly and voluntarily made.”); see also In re Parks, 2008 VT 65, ¶ 8, 184 Vt. 110, 956 A.2d 545 (“Compliance with Rule *39911 is the procedural manner in which the trial court creates a record demonstrating that defendant’s plea and consequent waiver of constitutional rights is both knowing and voluntary. Thus, the Rule 11 colloquy is not just a technical litany intended to alter the smooth flow of operations in the trial court. It is a procedure with constitutional implications for the defendant.”). As interpreted by the majority, Rule 11(d) no longer meets the requirements of Boykin. Nor, as it is interpreted by the majority, does the rule require that the “record shows that such plea was . . . voluntarily made.” Reporter’s Notes, V.R.Cr.R 11.
¶ 34. As the majority acknowledges, the trial court here “did not directly inquire of petitioner as to whether his plea was coerced or induced by promises outside of the plea agreement.” Ante, ¶ 2. Nor did the court inquire “indirectly.” Nor did the court inquire whether the plea was voluntary. At least in its colloquy with petitioner, the court ignored the subject entirely. The court did find that, the plea was voluntary. In the absence of any colloquy with petitioner on the subject, that conclusion is wholly unsupported by any information in the record. Further, the court did not determine that the plea was “not the result of force or threats or of promises apart from a plea agreement” as explicitly required by the rule. V.R.Cr.P. 11(d).
¶ 35. Despite these omissions, the majority concludes that the “circumstances” provide reasonable assurance that the substance of (d) was complied with and the plea was voluntary and free of coercion or improper promise — even where none of the participants, court, counsel, or petitioner, addressed the subject. Ante, ¶ 15. There are two types of “circumstances” in the majority decision — those before the plea is accepted and those after the plea was entered. As to the first type, the majority dismisses our past decisions as distinguishable from this case because they each showed “wholesale Rule 11 failure.” Ante, ¶ 21. I disagree that the record in this case is so distinguishable from a “wholesale” failure to follow Rule 11 procedure as to Rule 11(d). As to the latter type of circumstances, which are the subject of my third reason for rejecting the majority’s analysis, the record shows exactly why accepting Rule 11 noncompliance is wrong in this case.
¶ 36. The majority derives this lack of “wholesale” failure to follow Rule 11 procedure from the following: (1) petitioner failed to contradict the court’s use of the word “voluntary,” indeed he acquiesced in the finding of voluntariness, ante, ¶ 15; (2) the court *400complied with subsections (c) and (f) of Rule 11, ante, ¶¶ 12-13; (3) petitioner was represented by counsel, ante, ¶ 20; (4) petitioner’s counsel later represented to the court that petitioner helped negotiate the plea deal with the prosecution, ante, ¶ 15; and (5) petitioner sought to enforce some of the State’s obligations to him under the plea agreement, ante, ¶ 15. I start with the first three, which are circumstances present when the plea was accepted. The latter two go to my third reason for rejecting the majority’s analysis.
¶ 37. The first point, that petitioner failed to raise concerns on his own about the voluntariness of the plea, does not support a conclusion that we should excuse noncompliance with subsection (d). The essence of Rule 11 is to protect defendants relatively unsophisticated in the law by affirmatively informing them of their rights and inquiring into matters whose significance they may not fully understand or feel comfortable raising, particularly threats or inducements to enter the plea. As the court explained in United States v. Jimenez-Dominguez, 296 F.3d 863, 868 (9th Cir. 2002), discussing the substantially similar federal rule, “[t]he duty to inquire into discussions with the government is designed to uncover any promises, inducements, or understandings the defendant thinks he has with the government which are premised upon formal or informal communications and which may influence his decision to plead guilty.” The court went on to note that pleas are often preceded by “wide-ranging discussions with the government,” and whether or not the State intended to induce a plea or make a promise is less important than “whether the defendant has interpreted the discussions in such a fashion,” potentially mistakenly. Id. This compulsory inquiry by the trial court under Rule 11(d) thus “enable[s] the court to determine whether the plea is knowing and voluntary after identifying and discussing all communications between the parties which may have a bearing on the defendant’s decision to enter the guilty plea.” Id.; see also United States v. Gonzalez, 820 F.2d 575, 579 (2d Cir. 1987) (observing that Rule 11(d) serves to “make certain that the plea is indeed voluntary,” “to disabuse the defendant of any misconception he may have,” and “to preserve the integrity of the plea by eliminating the basis for a later claim” of defect).
¶ 38. Federal courts, interpreting Federal Rule 11 on which Vermont Rule 11 is based, have overturned guilty pleas in which the trial court gave a similarly cursory examination as to the *401voluntariness of the plea and/or the possibility of “force or threats or . . . promises.” For example, at the plea colloquy in United States v. Cammisano, 599 F.2d 851 (8th Cir. 1979), defense counsel stated, “I believe that it is [defendant’s] decision to enter this plea.” Id. at 853 n.2. As related by the Eighth Circuit: “The [trial] court then addressed defendant and asked whether defendant concurred with what his attorney said. Defendant responded: Yes, sir, I confirm it.’ ” Id. The Eighth Circuit found that “this procedure falls short of the spirit and letter of Rule 11(d).” Id. at 855.
¶ 39. This Court stressed the requirement of an in-court judicial inquiry in State v. Yates, 169 Vt. 20, 25, 726 A.2d 483, 487 (1999): “The fact that the court’s advice to defendant, the inquiry into voluntariness of the plea, and the inquiry into accuracy are all required to appear in the transcript of the plea proceeding inevitably leads to the conclusion that all three requirements must be met through personal address of the defendant.” Although Yates is generally about subsection (f), it also addresses subsections (c) and (d). With respect to subsection (c), the colloquy failed to address one of the charges against the defendant, and we held there was not substantial compliance when “a colloquy on a charge was entirely omitted.” Id. at 26 n.2, 726 A.2d at 487 n.2. Yates relied upon McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 467 (1969), for the requirement “that a trial judge must personally address the defendant to determine compliance with Rule 11.” Id. at 26, 726 A.2d at 487. McCarthy notes that Rule 11 “is designed to assist the [trial court] in making the constitutionally required determination that a defendant’s guilty plea is truly voluntary.” McCarthy, 394 U.S. at 465 (emphasis added) (explaining that, although the more meticulous the inquiry the better, this is merely a means to an end, the ultimate objective being a record sufficient to make the “constitutionally required” judicial determination that the plea was entered into voluntarily and free from improper coercion, threats, or inducements).
¶ 40. The majority’s holding that there was substantial compliance because petitioner failed himself to claim at the guilty plea proceeding that his plea was not voluntary, or failed to raise any issues with the court, directly wars with the requirement of Rule 11(d). If a criminal defendant is required to raise, on his own initiative, reasons why the plea should not be accepted, the responsibility of the court is eliminated. Defendants who are *402ignorant of their rights, exactly the persons whom the rule is intended to protect, waive those rights without knowing they have them. It is not a “technical” requirement that Rule 11 imposes the responsibility of inquiry to ensure voluntariness on the court; it is the heart of Rule ll’s purpose to ensure constitutional compliance.
¶ 41. I find the majority’s position particularly weak in a case where the controversy is about promises allegedly made by the prosecution. To a criminal defendant who believes he has the advantage of promises from the prosecution that will make the sentence imposed acceptable, the plea of guilty is “voluntary.” He has no reason to address the court with respect to voluntariness, and certainly no reason to contradict a finding of voluntariness. The important point about the colloquy required by Rule 11(d) is that the judge must determine whether the plea is the result of “promises apart from a plea agreement.” This is stated as an addition to “determining that the plea is voluntary.” The judge in this case made no finding that there was no promise apart from the plea agreement.
¶ 42. The second reason the majority gives, that the trial court complied with sections (c) and (f) of Rule 11, brings us to Parks, the decision on which the PCR court placed the greatest reliance. The majority distinguishes Parks because that decision involved a guilty plea acceptance that “failed to follow any part of Rule 11 whatsoever” to support a finding of plain error warranting reversal, rather than a failure to substantially comply solely with Rule 11(d). Ante, ¶ 6. While the majority accurately describes the facts of Parks, it distorts the holding. The exact holding is in the final paragraph:
To hold that defendant’s pleas here were knowing and voluntary would in effect overrule the provisions of Rule 11 — which were intended to promote the finality of guilty pleas and prevent collateral attack by requiring that trial judges enter a plea only after personally ensuring, on the record, that the defendant understands the consequences and willingly chooses to enter the plea.
2008 VT 65, ¶ 22 (emphasis supplied). Additionally, Parks itemized the specific deficiency present here. See id. ¶ 10 (“Furthermore, the court failed to inquire of defendant whether he was entering the plea voluntarily.”).
¶ 43. Ensuring that a plea is voluntary and free from coercion or promises has been described by this and other courts as one *403of the “core” concerns of Rule 11, along with ensuring that the defendant understands the nature of the charges and the consequences of the plea. Parks, 2008 VT 65, ¶ 14. Therefore, “[w]hen a [trial] court completely fails to address one of these concerns, the defendant’s substantial rights have been affected and Rule 11 requires automatic reversal.” United States v. Adams, 961 F.2d 505, 510 (5th Cir. 1992); accord United States v. Pena, 314 F.3d 1152, 1158 (9th Cir. 2003) (holding that trial court’s “failure to satisfy a core concern of Rule 11” by adequately informing defendant of charges against him violated defendant’s substantial rights and therefore required reversal); United States v. DePace, 120 F.3d 233, 236 (11th Cir. 1997) (“A court’s failure to address any one of these three core concerns requires automatic reversal.” (quotation omitted)); State v. Thompson, 167 Vt. 383, 387, 708 A.2d 192, 194 (1998) (holding that failure to comply with requirements of Rule 11(c) to ensure that defendant fully understood nature of charges and consequences of plea “undermines confidence in the outcome of the proceedings and thus was plain error” requiring that plea be vacated); see also In re Quinn, 174 Vt. 562, 563, 816 A.2d 425, 426 (2002) (mem.) (noting that a “finding of fundamental error in the acceptance of a guilty plea is sufficient to award the relief requested”). Consistent with the core requirement concept, we have found Rule 11 violations, and reversed judgments based on guilty pleas, where we found a violation of subsection (c) alone, Thompson, 167 Vt. at 387, 708 A.2d at 194, and subsection (f) alone, Yates, 169 Vt. at 27, 726 A.2d at 488. In light of the constitutional basis for subsection (d), it would make no sense to hold that a violation of subsection (d) is inconsequential as long as the court complied with subsections (c) and (f). Indeed, we said about Rule 11(f) in In re Dunham, 144 Vt. 444, 451, 479 A.2d 144, 148 (1984): “Absent [compliance with Rule 11(f)], no matter how perfectly the other parts of Rule 11 have been observed, we cannot find a voluntary plea.” We emphasized that no showing of prejudice was necessary to give relief in a PCR proceeding for a Rule 11(f) violation. Id.; see also In re Miller, 2009 VT 36, ¶ 11, 185 Vt. 550, 975 A.2d 1226 (showing of prejudice not required because Rule ll(f)’s requirement “goes directly to the voluntariness of his plea.”). We recently pointed out that the purpose of Rule 11(f) is to “reinforce[ ] the goal of ensuring knowing and voluntary pleas.” In re Stocks, 2014 VT 27, ¶ 13, 196 Vt. 160, 94 A.3d 1143; see also State v. Whitney, 156 Vt. 301, 303, *404591 A.2d 388, 389 (1991) (stating that Rule 11(f) addresses “constitutionally required determination of voluntariness”). There is no basis to distinguish one requirement of Rule 11, that in subdivision (f), which is intended to reach the goal of voluntary pleas, from another requirement in subdivision (d) intended to reach the same goal.
¶ 44. In essence, the majority is saying that it is acceptable to violate the constitutional requirement of Boykin because the court did not violate another right of the petitioner. As the PCR court held, “Parks is clearly apposite, and not substantially distinguishable on the critical issue of the court’s obligation to engage the defendant directly.” To the extent we ground our decision on Rule 11(d), the PCR court’s conclusion is clearly correct.
¶ 45. There is another point about Parks that is evident from the majority’s discussion of the case. While the majority purports to distinguish it, the majority also attacks it because it relies upon some direct appeal precedents even though it is a PCR case. In fact, Parks demonstrates that direct appeal and PCR decisions are largely interchangeable once we ruled that overturning a plea of guilty based on a Rule 11 violation requires a showing of plain error. See State v. Thompson, 162 Vt. 532, 534, 650 A.2d 139, 140 (1994). Indeed, whether we are dealing with a plain error direct appeal or a PCR, the standard has been whether there was substantial compliance with Rule 11. See In re Stocks, 2014 VT 27, ¶ 10 (PCR); State v. Mutwale, 2013 VT 61, ¶ 8, 194 Vt. 258, 79 A.3d 850 (direct appeal). This is the first case to hold that there can be substantial compliance despite noncompliance with a core requirement of Rule 11. While the majority discusses Parks, distinguishing it based on the violation of all core requirements in that case, it ignores Thompson, 167 Vt. at 387, 708 A.2d at 194, and the line of cases ending in In re Stocks, 2014 VT 27, ¶ 21, where violation of only one core requirement was sufficient to overturn a guilty plea.
¶ 46. The majority’s third reason, the involvement of an attorney for a criminal defendant, is similarly an evasion of the requirements of the rule. Except for cases involving relatively minor charges, counsel, whether appointed or retained, is present in virtually every criminal case. Thus, if a guilty plea resulted from improper coercion or unenforceable promises or inducements, defense counsel was generally “involved” in. the coercion or inducement to the extent that counsel was involved in the plea at *405all.8 Indeed, our cases where coercion was found to be present involved coercion by defendant’s counsel. See Quinn, 174 Vt. at 564-65, 816 A.2d at 427-29; In re Fuller, 135 Vt. 575, 580-81, 381 A.2d 1056, 1060 (1977). It is also significant that the defendant in Boykin was represented by counsel, as were the defendants in Yates and Parks, our two main decisions granting relief because of violations of Rule 11.
¶ 47. The majority’s reliance on this factor is apparently based on the conclusion that the lawyer can always be relied upon to protect the interest of the client even though the actions of the lawyer are usually invisible to us or the trial court. Some academic examinations of this conclusion conclude that it is sometimes erroneous. See D. Lynch, The Impropriety of Plea Agreements: A Tale of Two Counties, 19 Law & Soc. Inquiry 115 (1994);9 A. Alschuler, The Defense Attorney’s Role in Plea Bargaining, 84 Yale L.J. 1179, 1247 (1975) (“The client, however, may correctly perceive that he is, in effect, the public defender’s prisoner, that he will not receive within any foreseeable period the trial that the Constitution guarantees him, and that the only way to secure any resolution of his case is to do the public defender’s bidding”). It is one thing to rely on the presence of a lawyer to *406explain the nature of the charge(s) against a defendant and defendant’s rights with respect to those charges, the subject of subsection (c) of Rule 11. As the U.S. Supreme Court noted, “it may be appropriate to presume that in most cases defense counsel routinely explain the nature of the offense in sufficient detail to give the accused notice of what he is being asked to admit.” Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637, 647 (1976); cf. McCarthy, 394 U.S. at 470-72 (stating that a judge may not satisfy the requirements of Rule 11 by relying solely on defense counsel’s representations that defendant understands the charges against him). It is quite another to rely upon counsel to protect a defendant against improper coercion or unenforceable inducements where the lawyer is perceived as creating or passing on the coercion or inducements.
¶ 48. Relying upon the presence of counsel in this case is particularly ironic because, as discussed in more detail under the third reason to affirm, the lawyer agreed that there was a separate agreement with the prosecution, at least as to release by the time of petitioner’s daughter’s first birthday. See ante, ¶ 24. Any presumption that a defendant’s rights will always be protected because the defendant will receive competent advice of counsel is undermined by this case. This point is a good bridge to the third reason why we should affirm the superior court in this case.
¶ 49. The last parts of the rationale of the majority are that defense counsel later told the court that petitioner negotiated the plea himself and that petitioner later sought to enforce the plea agreement against the State. They are used by the majority as reasons why this is a case where “[petitioner claims neither actual coercion nor prejudice . . . but only noncompliance with the literal terms of one of multiple Rule 11 requirements.” Ante, ¶ 16. The majority’s argument here is a misdirection, and its characterization of petitioner’s claim is wholly divorced from the actual circumstances of this case. The facts on which it purports to rely are, in fact, the most important reasons why the superior court decision was right.
¶ 50. Some of the relevant facts are set out in the opening paragraphs of this dissent, but I will add more detail to demonstrate clearly what occurred. On February 23, 2011, some ten months after the pleas of guilty, petitioner filed a motion to withdraw his pleas in the criminal division. In addition to alleging *407the violation of Rule 11, he alleged that under the plea agreement negotiated between his lawyer and the state’s attorney, “he would be released before his daughter’s first birthday and also would be able to have contact with his wife and other child.” He moved to withdraw his pleas. The motion doesn’t state directly that he didn’t receive the benefits he understood he would get, but that is the import of the motion. Apparently, he obtained no relief because the motion was untimely. See V.R.Cr.P. 32(d) (motion to withdraw a plea of guilty must be made within thirty days of entry of judgment unless defendant’s sentence does not include a term of imprisonment).
¶ 51. There was, in effect, a hearing on the motion, in which petitioner’s counsel stated his understanding of what occurred.10 He stated:
And in this case, there was a specific promise that he would be released forty days after the date of sentencing so he could be out in time for his daughter’s birthday, and that was specifically negotiated with the State’s Attorney. The State’s Attorney and I had exchanges after the plea agreement about that, and the fact that it appeared it wasn’t being honored, and she and I had both talked to the Department of Corrections and had both been led to believe that he would, in fact, be released after forty days in time for his daughter’s birthday; and instead, the Department of Corrections wouldn’t honor that, and he ended up staying in jail until June instead of being released in May.
The Department of Corrections also didn’t honor the plea agreement, which called for DAP, and insisted that in order to get out he had to agree to do the IDAP program. We had specifically negotiated in the plea agreement that he would not abuse or harass Amanda Hemingway, but he could have contact, and by forcing him into the IDAP program, they imposed a condition of no contact, which violated the plea agreement.
*408State’s Attorney contacted the Director of — the Superintendent, and I contacted the Superintendent of DOC, and we were both told that there was no problem with — there’s no problem with the structure of our plea agreement in terms of getting Mr. Hemingway released under the conditions that we had outlined. Then they turned around and changed the ball game on us.
So I think that, you know, . . . not only from a lay person’s point of view, but also from a legal professional’s point of view, it’s not a good way to conduct business, and certainly it’s incomprehensible to somebody in Mr. Hemingway’s position how a promise can be made by the State and then violated.
THE COURT: Okay . . . you both agreed . . . that in spirit, the agreement was at fault. ... In spirit, not literally. Specifically, the agreement was at fault, but in spirit the agreement was at fault, the spirit of the agreement was he’s going to be released in forty days.
¶ 52. On being unable to obtain relief by his motion, petitioner filed this PCR case, claiming that the court violated Rule 11; that he was promised he would be released in forty days, which didn’t happen; and that he was promised he would have contact with his wife and children during his sentence, which was forbidden. Petitioner filed a partial motion for summary judgment, specifically on the count alleging a violation of the plea acceptance procedures. Because the trial court granted petitioner’s motion, the other counts alleging the State’s promises and their violations have not yet been reached.
¶ 53. The majority claims that none of this involves prejudice from the violation of Rule 11(d) because it deals with a claim of violation of the plea agreement and not a separate promise. I recognize that petitioner has often described his claims as breach of the plea agreement, but the promises here are clearly not part of the plea agreement as contemplated in the rule. In this case, the plea was a written document, which states that it is “a binding Rule 11 agreement.” Under Rule 11(e)(2), a plea agreement must be disclosed in open court at the time the plea is entered. Neither of the promises in issue was in the written plea agreement or disclosed in open court.
*409¶ 54. If the promises alleged here are part of the “plea agreement” as that term is used in Rule 11(d), then all promises made as part of the plea negotiation process are part of the plea agreement whether written or oral and whether disclosed or not. In that circumstance there are never “promises apart from a plea agreement,” and the determination requirement is a nullity. Since the whole point of the rule is to surface agreements or perceived agreements that are not otherwise before the court, see Jimenez-Dominguez, 296 F.3d at 868, the language must be aimed at exactly these kinds of agreements.
¶ 55. If that were not enough, even if the alleged promises were incorporated into the plea agreement, as the majority implies, the fact that petitioner attempted to enforce the State’s promises to him in a pro se motion simultaneously with his Rule 11 claim should not be taken as evidence that defendant’s objection to the Rule 11 process is invalid. An argument that an agreement is void or, in the alternative, should be enforced in a certain manner is common and unobjectionable. E.g., Segal v. Segal, 823 A.2d 1208, 1210 (Conn. 2003) (discussing just such an argument). Even if I agreed that the promises were part of the plea agreement, I would not agree with the majority’s reliance on this factor as a reason why this is a case with no claim of prejudice. The fact that petitioner understands the plea to mean certain things, and allegedly negotiated for those things himself, is not a logical guarantee that the agreement was not subject to improper pressures or promises.
¶ 56. This brings me back to Rule 11. The purpose of the colloquies in Rule 11 is to find and resolve areas of controversy that may upset guilty pleas and not leave them to later fact determinations based on who-said-what-to-whom in hours of bargaining. Petitioner may or may not have an enforceable agreement with the State that was breached, but it is clear that he understandably believed that he had such an agreement. If the court had asked the question Rule 11(d) requires, and petitioner had answered it consistently with his claims in this proceeding, the court would have been able to evaluate the validity and enforceability of the promises petitioner thought he had. As a result, petitioner would have known whether he had enforceable promises when he pled guilty, or not, and if the court found the promises to be enforceable, it is less likely the promises would have been breached. If he did not disclose the alleged promises when asked directly, his inaction would have been evidence that there were no such prom*410ises. In these circumstances, it is far preferable for us to enforce Rule 11(d) as written than it is to ignore it and to try to adjudicate what undisclosed oral agreement existed between a criminal defendant and the State and whether the agreement was breached. This is the third reason why we should affirm the superior court.
¶ 57. The majority either does not agree with the above purpose of Rule 11 or sees no need to implement it. The majority’s prejudice ruling turns Rule 11(d) into a paper right, with no possibility of a remedy. That is because the showing of prejudice it requires will by itself invalidate a plea of guilty, irrespective of whether there is also a violation of Rule 11(d). In this case, petitioner is required to prove the promises and their breach in order to establish a violation of Rule 11(d). But the prosecutor’s dishonored promise will give petitioner the right to set aside his guilty plea, even if there were perfect Rule 11 compliance. See Machibroda v. United States, 368 U.S. 487, 493 (1962) (“A guilty plea, if induced by promises or threats which deprive it of the character of a voluntary act, is void.”). The same would be true if petitioner showed the presence of threats or coercion. The majority’s position not only means there will never be a remedy for a violation of Rule 11(d), but also that there will never be a remedy for a violation of Boykin, essentially eviscerating a constitutional right.
¶ 58. In conclusion, I return to two points. We adopted Rule 11(d) to implement Boykin. It clearly does not do that. We have always required substantial compliance with Rule 11. This decision has not honored that requirement.
¶ 59. I dissent. I am authorized to state that Justice Robinson joins this dissent.

 This is not to say that defense counsel are always at fault in cases where defendants have been threatened or coerced into pleading guilty, only that defense counsel are not the safeguard the majority takes them to be. Cases from around the country show that improper threats, coercion, and promises can come from a wide variety of sources. E.g., United States v. Martinez-Molina, 64 F.3d 719, 734 (1st Cir. 1995) (holding that Rule 11(d) was not satisfied where judge inquired whether pleas were induced by threats or improper promises from anyone at the U.S. Attorney’s office but did not inquire whether pleas were coerced' by codefendants); United States v. Cammisano, 599 F.2d at 856-57 (finding that evidence of “familial coercion” is one factor in determination that defendant should be allowed to withdraw his plea); United States v. Werker, 535 F.2d 198, 203 (2d Cir. 1976) (stating that judicial involvement in plea-bargaining is contrary to voluntariness provision of Rule 11 because the judge “seems to become an advocate for the resolution [the judge] has suggested to the defendant”); United States v. Martinez, 486 F.2d 15, 18, 21 (5th Cir. 1973) (acknowledging that waiver of Miranda rights induced by improper promise of U.S. customs agent that “nothing would happen” to defendant could have invalidated plea deal, although ruling that in this case it did not); see also D. Lynch, The Impropriety of Plea Agreements: A Tale of Two Counties, 19 Law & Soc. Inquiry 115 (1994).

 This study by a lawyer who was formerly a public defender and also a prosecutor describes the ways in which plea bargaining is conducted to the advantage of prosecutors and defense counsel and to the disadvantage of the defendant. Lynch, supra, at 123-24.

 The hearing was held on March 3, 2011 in connection with a violation of probation hearing initiated by the State.