Court Opinion

ID: 9714799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:46:02.080422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:28.720428
License: Public Domain

Eobert W. Hansen, J.
(concurring). The defendant claims that, when he pled guilty to second-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery, he understood that he would be eligible for parole in two years, when in fact he will not be eligible to get out on parole for four years. The majority opinion sets forth the testimony of *469defendant’s trial counsel stating that the defendant was informed by such trial counsel that the chance to make parole would be . . two years on the second-degree murder and an additional year for each one of the other. . . .” So, on the entire record, the majority finds no manifest injustice, and rejects the request of defendant to withdraw his pleas of guilty. There is no reason or basis on which to quarrel with that finding and that result.
However, if the implication is that a misunderstanding on the part of the defendant as to when he could apply for parole, would, if established, warrant a withdrawal of plea, the writer does not agree. Any such hope or expectation or belief as to parole eligibility is no more and no different from the “hopes, expectations or beliefs” as to the punishment to which he might be exposed, which this court has said do not constitute reason for permitting withdrawal of a plea of guilty.1
It has become standard operating procedure for defendants in criminal cases, through their counsel, to seek and secure a reduction of the crime charged in exchange for a plea of guilty. Such prearranged bargain for a guilty plea is called by judges and lawyers a “plea agreement” and legitimatized as a necessary accommoda-tive device to meet the pressures of overcrowded criminal court calendars. Other observers see such court decisions based “. . . on what must be done to seal a *470bargain for a guilty plea,” as “. . . reinforcing in the wrongdoer a smug certainty that the law is something he need never really respect.” 2 After the deal is made and the guilty plea entered, it also has become standard procedure for the convicted defendant to equip himself with counsel other than the attorney who represented him at the trial. Then, as here, the claim is made either that the deal made was not kept, or that some misinformation crept into the bargaining process.
Very recently, in three cases decided on the same day,3 the United States Supreme Court upheld bargained pleas of guilty.4 These decisions make subsequent disavowal of the admission of guilt and plea on the ground of incorrect assessment of relevant but collateral factors more difficult.5 Distinguishing earlier cases that involved the possibility of the imposition of the death penalty, the *471nation’s highest judicial tribunal made clear that even an inaccurate assessment of the admissibility of defendant’s confession would not be an error sufficient to entitle the defendant to disavow his admission in open court that he committed the offense with which he was charged.6
Clearly, if it ever was, it no longer is a requirement that “. . . all advice offered by the defendant’s lawyer withstand retrospective examination in a postconviction hearing.” 7 So the writer would hold that, even if defendant’s counsel did not, as he here did, correctly inform the defendant of when he might hope to get out on parole, such inaccurate advice would not entitle the defendant to withdraw his voluntary admission in open court that he committed the crime with which he was charged. Departmental rules and regulations governing inmates of state penal institutions are often changed and often complicated in application to an individual situation. Precise knowledge of all present agency regulations in this field is not to be included within the range of required competence of attorneys in criminal cases. Additionally, such collateral matters ought not be made a part of the negotiable issues at the bargaining table when so-called “plea agreements” are reached.
Here the defendant, with his attorney by his side, voluntarily entered in the court record his admission that he had committed the crimes with which he was *472charged. That he then thought he could apply for parole in two years rather than four is a collateral and peripheral factor that does not erase or wipe out his admission of guilt. At least it ought not, if the trial of a criminal case is in fact a search for truth.

 See Pulaski v. State (1964), 23 Wis. 2d 138, 147, 148, 126 N. W. 2d 625, certiorari denied, 379 U. S. 862, 85 Sup. Ct. 124, 13 L. Ed. 2d 65, stating: “If the defendant entered the plea of guilty with the hope and expectation or belief that either the punishment to which he might be exposed would be mitigated and the out-of-county charges would also be consolidated so he could also plead guilty to them, those hopes, expectations, or beliefs, even though induced by his counsel or others, or as a consequence of misinterpretation of things said to him, normally would not constitute a ground for the exercise of the discretion necessary to permit the plea of guilty to be withdrawn. . . .”

 Downie, Leonard, Crime in the Courts: Assembly Line Justice, Vol. 2, No. 3, May, 1970, The Washington Monthly, page 26. The article is excerpted from a hook, tentatively entitled Justice Denied: The Case for Reform of the Courts, to be published by Praeger Publishers, Inc., early in 1971.

 McMann v. Richardson (May 4, 1970), 397 U. S. 759, 90 Sup. Ct. 1441, 25 L. Ed. 2d 763; Parker v. North Carolina (May 4, 1970), 397 U. S. 790, 90 Sup. Ct. 1458, 25 L. Ed. 2d 785; Brady v. United States (May 4, 1970), 397 U. S. 742, 90 Sup. Ct. 1463, 25 L. Ed. 2d 747.

 “We decline to hold, however, that a guilty plea is compelled and invalid under the Fifth Amendment whenever motivated by the defendant’s desire to accept the certainty or probability of a lesser penalty rather than face a wider range of possibilities extending from acquittal to conviction and a higher penalty authorized by law for the crime charged.” Brady v. United States, supra.

 “The rule that a plea must be intelligently made to be valid does not require that a plea be vulnerable to later attack if the defendant did not correctly assess every relevant factor entering into his decision. A defendant is not entitled to withdraw his plea merely because he discovers long after the plea has been accepted that his calculus misapprehended the quality of the state’s case or the likely penalties attached to alternative courses of action.” (Emphasis supplied.) Brady v. United States, supra.

 “. . . even if Parker’s counsel was wrong in his assessment of Parker’s confession, it does not follow that his error was sufficient to render the plea unintelligent and entitle Parker to disavow his admission in open court that he committed the offense with which he was charged. ... we think the advice he received was well within the range of competence required of attorneys representing defendants in criminal cases. Parker’s plea of guilty was an intelligent plea not open to attack on the grounds that counsel misjudged the admissibility of Parker’s confession.” Parker v. North Carolina, supra.

 McMann v. Richardson, supra.