Court Opinion

ID: 9584980
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:54:38.070248+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:59.174037
License: Public Domain

Justice EXUM
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that Judge Lee’s finding No. 31 is supported by the evidence. This finding is crucial to conclusion No. 1 that Mr. Nimocks’ advice to defendant to plead guilty was “the result of informed professional deliberation and judgment, and . . . not based on neglect or ignorance” and to conclusion No. 3 that defendant was not denied effective assistance of counsel. Finding No. 31 is:
(31) That Stephen H. Nimocks did not advise Petitioner that he was guilty of armed robbery merely because he was at the scene with the other participants, but that his advice to the Petitioner to plead guilty was based upon the statements of all co-defendants, the statement of Petitioner himself, and Nimocks’ conversations with the Investigating Officers Byrd and Conerly.
The majority asserts that this finding is supported by the statements of defendant’s companions, the robbery victim, and the testimony of Mr. Nimocks and Officer Byrd. Neither the cited evidence nor any other in the record supports this finding; in fact, all of the evidence is contrary to the finding. On the basis of the uncontradicted evidence, most of which comes from the testimony *730of Mr. Nimocks himself, defendant is entitled to the relief he seeks.
As the majority correctly notes, defendant at all times contended to Mr. Nimocks that he did not participate in the robbery and actually tried to help the victim. Defendant said he was merely present at the scene of the robbery. It is undisputed in this record that this has been defendant’s consistent and unaltered position since he first gave a statement to investigating detectives, Bob Conerly and Billy Byrd. His first statement was made on 11 September 1977, several days after his arrest on the charge of robbing Hammond. According to this statement, offered as defendant’s Exhibit 1, defendant was riding with his companions Hopple, Johnson, and Bralick, when they picked up Hammond, a hitchhiker. After riding around awhile, Johnson drove the car into some woods and stopped. Defendant got out of the car “and went to the bathroom.” When defendant turned around, his companions were robbing Hammond. Defendant asked them to leave Hammond alone. They refused, continued to rob Hammond and then left in the car, abandoning defendant and Hammond. Subsequently, his companions returned to pick defendant up. Shortly after the incident and before they could return home, defendant and his companions were arrested for the robbery.
According to Mr. Nimocks’ own testimony, the following transpired with regard to his representation of defendant: He first visited defendant in jail on 14 September 1977. The purpose of this first visit was to determine whether Nimocks would represent defendant, what defendant’s plea would be, and Mr. Nimocks’ fee. (T p 253) Mr. Nimocks was not sure whether at that time he had seen defendant’s statement to Detectives Conerly and Byrd. (T p 253) He did see a copy of this statement shortly after his first conversation with defendant in the jail. (T p 253) But it was at this first conversation that it was determined that defendant would enter a plea of guilty and Mr. Nimocks’ fee for entering the plea would be $1500. (T p 254) Mr. Nimocks stated that what defendant said about his participation in the robbery at this first conversation in the jail was consistent with defendant’s statement earlier given to Officers Byrd and Conerly. (T p 341) Mr. Nimocks then advised defendant that he was “technically guilty and that he should plead guilty.” (T p 331) This advice, according to Nimocks, “was based on what [defendant] told me his participa*731tion was in the crime, primarily.” (T p 331) On 16 September, in an effort to get defendant’s bond reduced, Mr. Nimocks prepared an application for writ of habeas corpus (T p 263).1 The application, which was primarily directed at getting defendant’s bond reduced, recited:

That your petitioner is advised by self-retained counsel that he is technically guilty of one count of armed robbery and that it is his desire to enter a plea of guilty thereto;

That your petitioner has volunteered and desires to testify in behalf of the State of North Carolina and that he will truthfully testify in behalf of the State as to all facts and matters surrounding the charges which have been brought against him;
That petitioner has made a confession to Officers Conerly and Byrd and that said confession was made truthfully and voluntarily without any threat or promise of reward to your petitioner .... [Emphases supplied.]
At the hearing on defendant’s application for habeas corpus conducted on 19 September 1977, Mr. Nimocks examined Detectives Byrd and Conerly. Detective Byrd testified that he felt defendant had told the truth in his 11 September 1977 statement and that defendant’s statement had helped in the solution of other crimes that had not then been solved. (Habeas Corpus Proceeding, p 18; T p 342) Detective Conerly testified that defendant had stated “[t]hat he was merely a passenger in the vehicle, didn’t have any idea what was going down, that he had attempted to dissuade the others from doing any harm to Mr. Hammond.” (Habeas Corpus Proceeding, p 35) Detective Conerly also testified that defendant’s statement regarding defendant’s own involvement in the crime “was completely truthful” but “did leave out some information which involved a codefendant and a former hometown friend of his.” (Habeas Corpus Proceeding, pp 38-39)
It is clear from the above undisputed facts that Mr. Nimocks gave defendant unsound legal advice based upon Mr. Nimocks’ erroneous understanding of the law. Under defendant’s version of *732the incident, corroborated by defendant’s pretrial statement to Detectives Byrd and Conerly, Nimocks’ own conversations with these officers, and his examination of them at the habeas corpus proceeding, defendant was not guilty of the crime charged. He was merely present when the crime occurred. Mere presence at the scene of a crime does not make one guilty of that crime, technically or otherwise. See State v. Haywood, 295 N.C. 709, 717-18, 249 S.E. 2d 429, 434 (1978); State v. Aycoth and Shadrick, 272 N.C. 48, 157 S.E. 2d 655 (1967). Yet Mr. Nimocks advised defendant that he was “technically guilty” of robbery even under his own version of the incident. There is no better documentation of Mr. Nimocks’ erroneous conclusion than the application for habeas corpus which he prepared and which states that defendant had “made a confession to Officers Conerly and Byrd.” In fact and in law, defendant, contrary to Mr. Nimocks’ opinion, had made no confession; he had made an exculpatory statement.
Although under defendant’s version of the incident defendant was not guilty, as far as Mr. Nimocks had advised him defendant had no defense to the charge. Under either the state’s version or his own, he was, according to his lawyer, guilty. A guilty plea made under this kind of legal advice is not knowingly and understandingly made. It is also the product of ineffective assistance of counsel.
Judge Lee’s finding No. 31 that Mr. Nimocks “did not advise [defendant] that he was guilty of armed robbery merely because he was at the scene with the other participants” is simply not supported by the evidence. All of the evidence, including that of Mr. Nimocks, is that Mr. Nimocks gave precisely that advice. This advice vitiates defendant’s plea.
It is true that sometime before defendant entered his plea of guilty, Mr. Nimocks looked at the pretrial statements made by Hopple, Johnson and Hammond, the victim, all of which inculpated defendant in the robbery. Consideration .of these statements might have caused an attorney to advise defendant to plead guilty, even if the attorney recognized that defendant’s own version of the incident constituted a good defense. The seriousness of the offense with which defendant was charged, as well as the credibility (if indeed it was credible) of potential testimony against him, may have made a guilty plea the most pru*733dent alternative. But any plea of guilty must be based on “the informed choice of the defendant” and “freely, voluntarily, and understandingly” given.2 Here, according to Mr. Nimocks’ own testimony, defendant’s plea was based on erroneous legal advice that even under his own version of the events he was technically guilty of armed robbery. The plea, then, was not the result of an informed choice to forego any defense defendant had to obtain potential benefits from pleading guilty. Nor was Mr. Nimocks’ advice to plead guilty “based upon the statements of all codefend-ants, the statement of Petitioner himself, and Nimocks’ conversations with the Investigating Officers Byrd and Conerly.”3 Mr. Nimocks’ counsel that defendant should plead guilty was, by his own testimony, the product of his erroneous assessment of the legal significance of defendant’s own statement, not a careful weighing of defendant’s statement against the statements of others.
Since finding No. 31, which is crucial to Judge Lee’s ultimate conclusions of law, is not supported by and is contrary to all of the evidence in the case, and since all of the evidence demonstrates that defendant’s plea could not have been knowingly and understandingly made and was the product of ineffective assistance of counsel, my vote is to vacate the plea and remand the matter to Cumberland Superior Court for trial.
Justices Carlton and Mitchell join in this dissent.

. The record clearly shows that Mr. Nimocks was the author of the application, T p 317, although his partner actually signed it.

. Judge Clark found that defendant’s plea was “the informed choice of the defendant” and was “made freely, voluntarily, and understandingly.” Judge Clark carefully questioned defendant before making this finding and accepting defendant’s plea. But defendant, unschooled in the law, was acting on Mr. Nimocks’ erroneous explanation of the applicable law. In answering Judge Clark’s questions defendant could not have known the advice he had been given was incorrect. Likewise, Judge Clark could not have known that defendant’s answers were tainted by such advice.

. That the inculpatory statements of defendant’s companions and the victim are in the record is no evidence in itself that Mr. Nimocks’ advice to defendant to plead guilty was based on them.