Court Opinion

ID: 9781587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 16:53:05.955722+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:28.312597
License: Public Domain

Andrews, Judge,
dissenting.
This record shows that the trial court offered Ealey a sentence of ten years to serve, a fine, and a supersedeas bond if he waived his right to a jury trial. But this record also shows, beyond any dispute, that the trial court never threatened Ealey with a heavier sentence if he proceeded to a jury trial. On the contrary, the trial court said only that if a jury found him guilty, the trial court “[could] take into consideration other factors” and that “the maximum you could get could be ... 41 years.” After an extensive discussion, Ealey agreed to a bench trial, and the trial court proceeded to a detailed confirmation of that agreement on the record.
The majority concedes that the issue here is not whether Ealey’s waiver was knowing or intelligent, but whether, despite the obvious signs of both these qualities in the record before us, it was “coerced” nonetheless. As the majority also concedes, we are well-advised to look to abundant Georgia precedent in the closely related context of guilty plea proceedings. The majority turns to the very recent decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia in Pride v. Kemp, 289 Ga. 353 (711 SE2d 653) (2011), and concludes that this decision authorizes its conclusion. On the contrary, the trial court in Pride made the bald threat that “If I tried the case and he was found guilty I would give him the maximum[, and] I would stack the sentences.” Id. at 353. It was on this basis, and not concerning a mere description of possible outcomes, that the Supreme Court reversed the habeas court’s denial of that defendant’s petition. Id. at 354 (defendant “heard the trial court repeatedly state that it would impose a longer sentence if [he] went to trial” and that the trial court “would prefer that [he] go to trial” so that the court could “ ‘give [him] what I *900would really like to give him’ ”).
Decided July 14, 2011.
Jonathon J. Majeske, for appellant.
Tracy Graham-Lawson, District Attorney, Luana Popescu, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
As Pride's comparison citation to one of this Court’s myriad cases affirming a guilty plea suggests, nothing approaching such a threat appears in this record. On the contrary, this trial court “made no statement as to the sentence that would be imposed” if Ealey declined a bench trial, and this trial court never “threaten[ed]” Ealey with a stricter sentence. Pride, 289 Ga. at 354, citing Works v. State, 301 Ga. App. 108, 111 (3) (686 SE2d 863) (2009). In fact, if this trial court had not advised Ealey of the maximum possible sentence for his crimes, his choice to forego a jury trial might well have been neither knowing nor voluntary, although we have frequently upheld guilty pleas even when this information is less clear than it might have been. See Johnson v. State, 298 Ga. App. 197, 199-201 (1), (2) (679 SE2d 763) (2009) (affirming denial of motion to withdraw guilty plea even when counsel’s advice to defendant that he was subject to a maximum sentence was not on the record, and when the trial court “thoroughly ascertained on the record that Johnson’s plea was voluntary and knowing”).
For all these reasons, the trial court did not err when it found Ealey’s waiver of a jury trial valid. I therefore dissent.
I am authorized to state that Judge Dillard joins in this dissent.