Court Opinion

ID: 9477959
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:35:53.896261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:08.783717
License: Public Domain

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur fully in part II. B of the panel’s opinion that the case must be remanded for an evidentiary hearing. I write separately because I view the issue as whether a plea may be involuntary because a defendant was misadvised as to the maximum penalty he faced if convicted. There is considerable difference, in my opinion, between a life sentence with the possibility of parole and a life sentence without parole. Eligibility for parole is ordinarily only a collateral consequence of a possible sentence. In the case of a life sentence without parole, however, it is more than collateral. It is an essential and critical portion of the penalty.
As we stressed in Pitts v. United States, 763 F.2d 197, 201 (6th Cir.1985), “affirmative misstatements of the maximum possible sentence” are much more serious than a mere failure to give a defendant some information which he later claims would have affected his pleading decision.... When the maximum possible exposure is overstated, the defendant might well be influenced to accept a plea agreement he would otherwise reject.”