Court Opinion

ID: 9713684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:20:09.277439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:19.919353
License: Public Domain

STATON, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. As observed by the majority, the primary.goal of contract interpretation is to give effect to the parties’ intent. Thus, the question to be answered in this case is whether Wright and the State intended for the Dealing in Cocaine charges to be dismissed when they entered into the following agreement:
Upon [Wright’s] plea of guilty to Count I, Theft, a class D felony, he shall be sentenced to the Indiana Department of Correction for three (3) years. The State agrees to dismiss Count II, and further agrees not to file or proceed with any other charges of which they have knowledge.
Record at 130. The majority concludes that these terms unambiguously manifest the State’s intent not to prosecute the pending Dealing in Cocaine charges. I cannot agree.
If the State had wished to dismiss the dealing charges, it could have specifically identified them as it did the second Theft count. Instead, the State chose to include a general statement, agreeing “not to file or proceed with any other charges of which they have knowledge.” This statement, taken in conjunction with its specific dismissal of the Theft count, is ambiguous. Although it could mean that the State agreed to dismiss the Dealing in Cocaine charges, it could also mean that the State agreed not to refile or otherwise prosecute charges related specifically to the events surrounding the Theft charges. Because the plea agreement is ambiguous, I would look to extrinsic evidence to determine its meaning.
The trial court concluded, and I agree, that the parties did not intend for the Dealing in Cocaine charges to be dismissed. The trial court identified the following evidence in support of its conclusion: (1) the Dealing in Cocaine charges were not specifically referred to in either the plea agreement or at the plea hearing; (2) neither the trial court’s sentencing order nor the Abstract of Judgment regarding the Theft conviction refer to a dismissal of the dealing charges; (3) Wright waited nearly eight months from the time of the plea agreement until he moved for dismissal of the dealing charges, and he requested two trial continuances during that period; and (4) a deputy prosecutor involved in the execution of the plea agreement testified that the State did not intend to dismiss the Dealing in Cocaine charges. Too, I would add that the Dealing in Cocaine charges were pending in a different court, the Howard Circuit court, than the Theft *1157charges which were in the Howard Superior Court. Thus, the plea agreement was executed in a different court.
Because I would affirm the trial court’s denial of Wright’s motion to dismiss the Dealing in Cocaine charges, I dissent.