Court Opinion

ID: 9785809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:26:55.372166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:04.983249
License: Public Domain

ECKERSTROM, Judge,
dissenting.
¶ 21 Here, the state withdrew a plea offer it had tendered to Secord merely because he sought to examine evidence that the state should already have provided him. Because the state had no substantial governmental interest in withholding the evidence and because disclosure of that evidence was, in my view, pivotal to Secord’s ability to make a knowing and intelligent decision whether to enter a guilty plea, I would find that the state’s action violated Secord’s right to due process.
¶22 In Arizona, as in the rest of the country, the vast majority of criminal cases are resolved by guilty plea after negotiation. Ariz. Sup.Ct. Programs Unit, 1 Ariz. Courts: Data Report for FY 2003, at 63; In re Alvernaz, 2 Cal.4th 924, 8 Cal.Rptr.2d 713, 830 P.2d 747, 752-53 (1992) (eighty to ninety percent of criminal cases resolved by guilty plea, most the product of plea bargains); see also Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 632, 122 S.Ct. at 2457, 153 L.Ed.2d at 597 (plea bargaining resolves “90% or more” of federal criminal cases). In those cases, it is plea negotiation, not trial, that resolves whether a defendant committed a crime and that determines the potential range of punishment the defendant faces for that crime. Thus, viewed from the perspective of most defendants and victims, the plea bargaining phase is not only a “ ‘critical stage in the criminal process,’” State v. Donald, 198 Ariz. 406, ¶ 12, 10 P.3d 1193, 1204 (App. 2000), quoting Alvernaz, 8 Cal.Rptr.2d 713, 830 P.2d at 753, it is the pivotal stage in the process.
¶23 When courts evaluate whether the state’s behavior during plea negotiations has violated a defendant’s due process rights, we are monitoring a stage in the criminal process that, in many cases, defines the criminal process itself. Although the judicial branch must acknowledge and respect the separation-of-powers doctrine granting prosecutors the sole prerogative to offer a plea agreement and determine its provisions, that doctrine does not require courts to disregard and leave without remedy insults to a defendant’s right to due process during plea negotiations — negotiations that the parties must ultimately ask the judicial branch to sanctify and execute during the change-of-plea and sentencing processes.
¶24 As the majority correctly observes, Arizona courts have repeatedly affirmed that the state alone possesses the authority to offer a plea agreement and to define the terms of any such offer. But once the state has extended an offer, our courts have not hesitated to invalidate a plea agreement or to order specific performance of a plea agreement in order to protect the defendant’s constitutional or procedural rights. Donald, 198 Ariz. 406, ¶ 40, 10 P.3d at 1204 (specific performance of plea agreement possible remedy for denial of defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel in plea-bargaining process); see also Draper, 162 Ariz. at 438, 784 P.2d at 264 (setting forth three-part test to determine if plea agreement provision violates due process); State v. Ethington, 121 Ariz. 572, 573-74, 592 P.2d 768, 769-70 (1979) (refusing on public policy grounds to enforce plea agreement provision in which defendant waived right to appeal); State v. Darelli 205 Ariz. 458, ¶¶ 23-26, 72 P.3d 1277, 1283-84 (App.2003) (vacating conviction entered after trial and ordering parties to return to specific stage of plea negotiations); State v. Horning, 158 Ariz. 106, 111, 761 P.2d 728, 733 (App.1988) (allowing defendant to withdraw guilty plea that had been improperly induced by promise of leniency to defendant’s wife because it caused involuntary waiver of defendant’s constitutional rights).9
*525¶25 Here, we address whether the state may withdraw a plea offer merely because the defendant has asserted his right to examine pivotal evidence. In so doing, we must first assess whether, based on the totality of the circumstances as represented by the record before us, the state’s action meaningfully impaired the defendant’s ability to enter a voluntary, knowing, and intelligent guilty plea. See Draper, 162 Ariz. at 436, 784 P.2d at 262; Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 629, 122 S.Ct. at 2455, 153 L.Ed.2d at 595. Although the majority makes this initial determination, in my view, Draper and Ruiz also require us to weigh the state’s interest in withholding the videotape against the defendant’s need of it. Draper, 162 Ariz. at 438, 784 P.2d at 264; Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 631, 122 S.Ct. at 2456, 153 L.Ed.2d at 596.10 I dissent because the majority neglects to engage in that weighing process at all and, in resolving the claim against Secord, trivializes Secord’s need to view the videotape in making a knowing and intelligent decision whether to accept the plea offer.
¶ 26 During oral argument, the state asserted that Ruiz does not endorse a weighing test but, rather, precludes any federal due process claim anchored on the deprivation of a defendant’s right to examine certain disclosure materials before entering a guilty plea. But Ruiz does not stand for that broad conclusion. Rather, Ruiz addressed the narrower question of whether “the Constitution requires th[e] preguilty plea disclosure of impeachment information.” 536 U.S. at 629, 122 S.Ct. at 2455, 153 L.Ed.2d at 595 (emphasis added). The Court framed the issue before it as follows: “The constitutional question concerns a federal criminal defendant’s waiver of the right to receive from prosecutors exculpatory impeachment mate'rial — a right that the Constitution provides as part of its basic ‘fair trial’ guarantee.” Id. at 628, 122 S.Ct. at 2454, 153 L.Ed.2d at 594 (emphasis added). In rejecting the defendant’s claim, the Court anchored its analysis in the specific features of impeachment evidence. Id. at 630, 632-33, 122 S.Ct. at 2455, 2456, 153 L.Ed.2d at 595, 597 (“It is particularly difficult to characterize impeachment information as critical information of which the defendant must always be aware prior to pleading guilty---- The Ninth Circuit’s rule risks premature disclosure of Government witness information, which, the Government tells us, could ‘disrupt ongoing investigations’ and expose prospective witnesses to serious harm.”). The Court also emphasized case-specific protections Ruiz possessed under her proposed plea agreement as well as the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Id. at 631, 122 S.Ct. at 2456, 153 L.Ed.2d at 596 (plea agreement required government to provide “any information establishing the factual innocence of the defendant”).
¶ 27 Far from implicitly overruling Draper, a case that clearly sets forth a weighing test to address due process claims based on the withholding of disclosure as a condition of a plea agreement, Ruiz engaged in a strikingly similar analysis in reaching its conclusion. As in Draper, Ruiz rejected the argument that the state’s withholding of disclosure in advance of a plea offer constitutes a per se federal constitutional violation. Compare Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 630, 122 S.Ct. at 2455-56, 153 L.Ed.2d at 595-96 with Draper, 162 Ariz. at 437, 442, 784 P.2d at 263, 268. As in Draper, Ruiz resolved the claim by weighing the nature of a defendant’s interests in the specific disclosure in question against the nature of the state’s interest in withholding it. Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 631, 122 S.Ct. at 2456, 153 L.Ed.2d at 596; Draper, 162 Ariz. at 438, 784 P.2d at 264. Indeed, Justice Thomas declined to join in the Ruiz majority precisely because it had engaged in a weighing process that implicitly limited its holding to the specific factual scenario before it. Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 633-34, 122 S.Ct. at 2457, 153 L.Ed.2d at 598 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“To the extent that the Court is implicitly draw*526ing a line based on a ... characterization about the usefulness of certain types of information, I can only concur in the judgment.”).
¶ 28 Although the majority fails to address the propriety of the state’s action in withholding the videotape, I would conclude that the state has failed to articulate any substantial governmental interest in so doing. One can readily imagine cases in which the disclosure of some information might disrupt an ongoing investigation, exact a substantial financial cost on taxpayers, or traumatize or endanger a witness. See id. at 631-32, 122 S.Ct. at 2456, 153 L.Ed.2d at 596-97 (noting that disclosure of impeachment information, while required by federal rules of criminal procedure, could disrupt ongoing investigations, endanger witnesses, and disrupt efficient administration of justice through early resolution of eases); Draper, 162 Ariz. at 438, 784 P.2d at 264 (emphasizing existence of legitimate state interest in protecting victim witnesses from further trauma). Under such circumstances, a prosecuting agency could possess legitimate grounds, anchored in good public policy, for protecting otherwise discoverable information from the plea-bargaining process.
¶29 But the state has asserted no such grounds here. The prosecutor assigned to the ease initially suggested that the plea offer was automatically withdrawn pursuant to an office policy that provides beneficial agreements only to those willing to accept those agreements without litigation. As noted, this would be consistent with a substantial state interest in the efficient administration of justice. See Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 631-32, 122 S.Ct. at 2456, 153 L.Ed.2d at 596-97. However, the prosecutor eventually conceded that no office policy required him to withdraw the plea agreement in retaliation for Secord’s request for appropriate disclosure and that he had withdrawn the agreement in his own discretion for his own reasons. He explained that reasoning to the court as follows: “I made the decision to allow people who’re willing to take responsibility for their actions early on to be in a better position than people who want to review all of their possible options to escape liability for something that they’re guilty of.” Although the state is certainly entitled to reward defendants who demonstrate acceptance of responsibility with more favorable plea offers, that rationale does not apply in the context of the specific situation here. Secord had filed no motions nor engaged in any burdensome “litigation” before the state withdrew the plea offer. He had merely asked to examine evidence that should have been disclosed to him, even in the absence of a specific request, before the early plea offer deadline.11 See former Ariz. R.Crim. P. 15.1(a)(1), (2), and (4), 202 Ariz. XLIX (2002). Notably, Se-cord’s alcohol concentration suggested that his impairment, if he was impaired, might have been subtle.12 For this reason, Secord’s request to examine the videotape could have reflected an earnest desire to determine whether he had actually committed the crime with which he was charged rather than a cynical effort to avoid accepting responsibility for his actions.
¶ 30 When the prosecutor equated the mere request for information with a lack of acceptance of responsibility, he essentially conditioned his assessment of Secord’s worthiness to receive a plea offer on his ignorance of the entire case against him. This *527condition undermined the core requisite of due process in the context of a guilty plea— that a defendant’s waiver of the right to trial must be made knowingly and intelligently. See Brady, 397 U.S. at 748, 90 S.Ct. at 1469, 25 L.Ed.2d at 756.
¶ 31 Although the state articulated no substantial public policy grounds for conditioning its plea offer on Secord’s waiver of disclosure, Secord possessed a substantial need to examine the videotape in order to intelligently assess whether to accept the state’s plea offer. In evaluating Secord’s need for this disclosure, we must be cognizant of circumstances that can render a particular piece of evidence superfluous to the decision whether to accept a plea offer. See Draper, 162 Ariz. at 438, 784 P.2d at 264 (no due process violation when defendant has sufficient access to state’s evidence to assess legal situation and when other evidence overwhelmingly shows guilt); see also Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 630, 122 S.Ct. at 2456, 153 L.Ed.2d at 596 (federal constitution does not require “complete knowledge” of relevant case circumstances for defendant to intelligently assess plea offer). Those circumstances do not exist here.
¶ 32 In evaluating whether to plead guilty to a reduced charge, Secord was entitled to assess the prospective strength of the state’s case. See Donald, 198 Ariz. 406, ¶ 9, 10 P.3d 1193, 1198 (to render effective assistance, attorney must advise defendant of “the relative merits of the offer compared to the defendant’s chances at trial”). Secord’s alcohol test result did not definitively resolve the question whether he had been impaired at the time he drove. To the contrary, the result scientifically demonstrated that the determination of any alcohol impairment would be a close question. For this reason, the precise nature of Secord’s performance on the field sobriety tests and his behavior during the field investigation were pivotal in assessing his criminal liability and his chances at trial. See id. Although the state now claims the videotape contained essentially the same evidence it had earlier disclosed to Secord through Deputy Hill’s written reports, those reports constituted nothing more than the record of Hill’s subjective judgments of Secord’s appearance and behavior during the field investigation. By viewing the videotape, the jury was able to objectively assess Secord’s appearance, gait, and performance on the field sobriety tests without depending on either Secord’s or the deputy’s subjective judgment about those events. Under these specific circumstances, Secord needed to examine the videotape to objectively evaluate his likelihood of success in challenging Hill’s conclusions on those key events before he could intelligently assess his chances of prevailing at trial. See id. He also needed to examine the videotape to evaluate the accuracy of his self-assessment of his condition at the time.
¶ 33 At the hearing on withdrawal of the plea offer, defense counsel underscored the importance of this information to an assessment of his client’s situation as follows:
I spoke with [the prosecutor], and advised him that I felt very uncomfortable in this ease ... accepting the plea without first seeing the videotape. [The prosecutor] informed me that if I was going to request the videotape, we would lose the plea, which put me in a very bad position. I couldn’t really advise my client one way or the other because based on the disclosed information it’s a tri[ ]al case.... so the videotape became crucial because, as I said, it was a borderline case.
I was between a rock and a hard place.
I mean [the videotape was] absolutely crucial. And I just don’t see how I would be able to advise my client one way or the other without seeing that piece of evidence.
In my view, defense counsel’s concerns were well founded. In general, one cannot imagine a piece of evidence more crucial to the outcome of a close DUI case than a videotape of the defendant’s performance during the officer’s field investigation. Deprived of that information, but aware of its existence, Se-cord would have had difficulty avowing to the trial court that his decision to plead guilty was the product of a knowing and intelligent thought process. See Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 629, 122 S.Ct. at 2455, 153 L.Ed.2d at 595.
*528¶ 34 “Given the seriousness of the matter, the Constitution insists, among other things, that the defendant enter a guilty plea that is ‘voluntary' and that the defendant must make related waivers ‘knowing[ly], intelligently], [and] with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.’” Id., quoting Brady, 397 U.S. at 748, 90 S.Ct. at 1469, 25 L.Ed.2d at 756. As one Arizona Supreme Court justice has observed, albeit in dissent: “Plea bargaining should not be reduced to a shameful imitation of a midday game show, where a deal is struck only when ‘the price is right’ with no knowledge of what’s behind door number three.” State v. Solano, 150 Ariz. 398, 403, 724 P.2d 17, 22 (1986) (Gordon, J. dissenting).
¶ 35 The state has a substantial and legitimate interest in using the plea bargaining process to expedite cases and to protect some forms of otherwise disclosable information. By the same token, our criminal justice system has a substantial interest in ensuring that pleas are the product of knowing and intelligent thought processes. When the state’s action meaningfully impairs a defendant’s ability to engage in that thought process and does so without any grounds anchored in public policy, I believe the state violates the defendant’s due process rights. See Draper, 162 Ariz. at 436, 784 P.2d at 262. Specifically, the state violated Second’s right to due process in the plea negotiations here when it (1) withheld a pivotal piece of information necessary for Secord to make a knowing and intelligent decision whether to accept the plea offer and (2) did so without any substantial governmental purpose for its action. For this reason, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 36 I concur in the majority’s resolution of all other issues.

. Arizona provides defendants who plead guilty a "Rule 32 of-right” proceeding in lieu of an appeal. Ariz. R.Crim. P. 32.1, 17 A.R.S.

. In this case, the trial court also failed to engage in this necessary weighing process. Instead, it found that "the Court’s intervention, as indicated by Draper, is limited to a determination of whether or not the plea was affected by any undisclosed terms and conditions.” In so con-eluding, the trial court overlooked the supreme court’s extensive discussion in Draper on the propriety of plea agreement conditions that limit a defendant's access to pretrial disclosure. Draper, 162 Ariz. at 436-39, 784 P.2d at 262-65.

. Former rule 15.1(a)(1), (2), and (4), Ariz. R.Crim. P., 16A A.R.S., required the state to disclose the videotape in question within ten days of Secord’s arraignment. Secord was thus entitled to the information on May 10, 1999. He requested the disclosure from the state before accepting the plea offer on or about May 18.

. A blood test administered within an hour of his driving showed Secord had an alcohol concentration of .09, a result within the margin of error of .08. Either number was below the alcohol concentration required to activate the legal presumption of impairment to the slightest degree at the time, .10. See former A.R.S. § 28-1381(H)(3), 1997 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 1, § 106. According to the state's own expert, .08 is the first threshold at which scientists will conclude that a person is necessarily impaired "to the slightest degree.” Thus, Secord's blood alcohol test placed his alcohol concentration near the concentration at which scientists consider the boundaries of a person's impairment to the slightest degree. Moreover, defense counsel elicited from the expert that Secord’s actual alcohol concentration at the time of driving might have been significantly less than the result obtained some fifty minutes later, depending on his drinking sequence and absorption rate.