Court Opinion

ID: 9542940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:40:34.747998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:20.198483
License: Public Domain

PARKS, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent on the basis that appellant’s plea was not knowingly and voluntarily entered. The evidence presented during the hearing on appellant’s motion to withdraw her plea is uncontroverted: Appellant was told by her attorney “he was sure that [she] would get a suspended sentence .. .because [she] had never been in trouble before ...” Because of this inaccurate information, appellant’s plea does not represent “a voluntary and intelligent choice among the alternative courses of action open to the defendant.” Avance v. State, 497 P.2d 467 (Okla.Crim.App.1972), quoting North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970).
At the hearing on appellant’s motion to withdraw her plea, the judge questioned her as to the information given to her by her attorney regarding a possible plea bargain. Appellant stated that immediately before she entered her blind plea, her attorney told her that the district attorney was offering a sentence of three years. He did not explain any of the details of this offer, such as whether the three years were to be suspended or served. He also told her that because she had never been in trouble before, “he was sure” she would get a suspended sentence. The State presented no evidence in rebuttal.
As stated in Wellnitz v. Page, 420 F.2d 935, 936 (10th Cir.1970):
Certainly, if an attorney recklessly promises his client that a specific sentence will follow upon a guilty plea, or otherwise unfairly holds out an assurance of leniency in exchange for a confession of guilt, the question may arise whether such assurances were coercive ...
At the motion hearing, the only testimony presented was that of appellant, who testified that she was not fully informed of the terms of the proposed plea bargain and she only pled guilty after receiving her attor*218ney’s “assurances” of a suspended sentence. Thus, I cannot agree that appellant’s plea was an intelligent and voluntary choice. Accordingly, the district court abused its discretion by refusing to allow appellant withdraw her plea. See Elmore v. State, 624 P.2d 78, 80 (Okla.Crim.App.1981).