Court Opinion

ID: 9552015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:03:29.980557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:25.596356
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. Less than 90 days ago this court approved State v. Morones, Ariz., 542 P.2d 28 (1975). The facts in Morones and in this case are substantially the same. In both cases the trial court, in accepting a guilty plea, failed to inform the defendant that he would not be eligible for parole until the minimum sentence of five years was served. In both cases the defendant was made aware that he could receive a maximum sentence of life imprisonment; and in each instance did receive a sentence which did not invoke the application of the five-year minimum before parole eligibility.
The Morones decision was bottomed on State v. Ross, 108 Ariz. 245, 495 P.2d 841 (1972). Ross was a case decided before the 1973 Rules of Criminal Procedure went into effect but considered whether the United States Supreme Court’s mandate as to guilty pleas in Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969), had been complied with. In the Ross case the court set out the issue in these words:
“2. Was the defendant’s plea of guilty invalid in that the sentencing judge did not inform the defendant that she would be ineligible for parole until she had served at least two years in prison?” State v. Ross, 108 Ariz. at 245, 495 P.2d at 841.
In disposing of this issue, the court held:
“We therefore hold that the provision of the statute requiring that a prisoner serve a certain minimum sentence is not such a ‘consequence of the plea’ that it must affirmatively appear on the record under the Boykin mandate.
“There is also another reason why the defendant cannot prevail. Since she was sentenced to serve not less than seven years, it would appear that she has not been harmed by failure to know (if indeed she did not know) of the 2-year restriction. Under these circumstances, the defendant could not be considered for parole within the two-year period and the omission was therefore harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” 108 Ariz. at 247-48, 495 P.2d at 843.
It must be remembered that Boykin, supra, required that a guilty plea must be voluntarily and intelligently made. This same standard is enunciated in Rule 17.3 of the 1973 Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure. Obviously, in holding as it does, the majority overrules Ross, supra.
I concur with the majority that the trial judge committed error in failing to fully comply with Rule 17.2(b), but I do not consider that error to be of such magnitude as to require reversal. Article 6, § 27 of the Arizona Constitution sets forth our position succinctly:
“. . . No cause shall be reversed for technical error in pleadings or proceedings when upon the whole case it shall appear that substantial justice has been done.”
I dissent.
HOLOHAN, J., concurs in the dissent.