Court Opinion

ID: 9958814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-09 22:06:24.179357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:41.567144
License: Public Domain

04/09/2024

                                          DA 21-0256
                                                                                           Case Number: DA 21-0256

              IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA
                                          2024 MT 78N

STATE OF MONTANA,

               Plaintiff and Appellee,

         v.

LEA ALEX YATES II,

               Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL FROM:           District Court of the Thirteenth Judicial District,
                       In and For the County of Yellowstone, Cause No. DC 19-220
                       Honorable Mary Jane Knisely, Presiding Judge

COUNSEL OF RECORD:

                For Appellant:

                       Chad Wright, Appellate Defender, Jeavon C. Lang, Assistant Appellate
                       Defender, Missoula, Montana

                For Appellee:

                       Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General, Bree Gee, Assistant Attorney
                       General, Helena, Montana

                       Scott D. Twito, Yellowstone County Attorney, Victoria Callender, Deputy
                       County Attorney, Billings, Montana

                                                   Submitted on Briefs: January 18, 2023

                                                              Decided: April 9, 2024

Filed:

                       __________________________________________
                                         Clerk
Justice Dirk Sandefur delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1    Pursuant to Section I, Paragraph 3(c), Montana Supreme Court Internal Operating

Rules, we decide this case by memorandum opinion, and thus it shall not be cited as

precedent. The case title, cause number, and disposition shall be included in this Court’s

quarterly list of noncitable cases published in the Pacific Reporter and Montana Reports.

¶2    Lea Alex Yates II appeals from the April 2021 judgment of the Montana Thirteenth

Judicial District Court, Yellowstone County, sentencing him to a three year suspended term

of commitment to the Montana Department of Corrections on the offense of felony assault

on a minor. Yates asserts that the State breached the parties’ plea agreement by making

comments at sentencing that undermined the joint plea agreement sentencing

recommendation. We reverse and remand for resentencing.

¶3    On February 19, 2019, Yates was caring for the two young children of his girlfriend

while she was at work. When she returned several hours later and asked how the kids

behaved in her absence, Yates told her that he had spanked almost three-year-old L.D. after

she urinated on herself. When bathing the child later that evening, the mother saw bruising

on the child’s buttocks. When she asked Yates about it, he did not answer.

¶4    The next day, the maternal grandmother saw the bruising on the child’s buttocks

while providing daycare and reported it to both the Child and Family Services Division of

the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, and the Yellowstone

County Sheriff’s Office. The law enforcement investigation found that the “bruising

covered a significant portion of the [child’s] buttocks,” “appeared to be the result of

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extreme force,” and was thus “inconsistent with a single spanking.” Inter alia, Yates

asserted to law enforcement that he only spanked the child once, with his hand.

¶5     After the State formally charged Yates with felony assault on a minor, he and the

original prosecutor negotiated the terms of a nonbinding plea agreement calling for him to

plead guilty in return for the State joining him in recommending a four-year deferred

imposition of sentence, a $1,000 fine, and any suitable treatment conditions. However,

before the original prosecutor signed the negotiated plea agreement, the case was

reassigned to a second prosecutor who later advised defense counsel that she would honor

the agreement negotiated by her predecessor. In November 2020, the second prosecutor

and Yates signed a nonbinding written plea agreement setting forth the terms previously

negotiated with the original prosecutor. Upon an accompanying written acknowledgement

and waiver of rights, and a comprehensive supplemental record change of plea colloquy

with the court, Yates later pled guilty in accordance with the plea agreement.

¶6     At sentencing in March 2021, in advance of making the State’s sentencing

recommendation, the second prosecutor remarked:

       As I was getting this calendar ready for today[,] I was looking over this case
       and I seriously thought, what was I thinking; how could I have agreed to this
       sentence? But then I realized in going further, that it was not my
       sentence [but that] I had told [defense counsel] that I certainly would honor
       [the original prosecutor’s] recommendation.

When the court asked whether the original prosecutor who negotiated the plea agreement

was available to explain the reason why the State made the agreement, the second

prosecutor advised the court that, after taking-over the case, she assured defense counsel

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that she “would honor” the agreement negotiated by her predecessor, and then later signed

the written plea agreement under which Yates pled guilty.              In proceeding with her

sentencing recommendation, the second prosecutor noted that Yates had no prior criminal

convictions, but that his record manifested “some assaultive behavior that ha[d] not ever

gone all the way to a conviction,” a fact “that concern[ed] the State.” She continued that

she did not, however, “have anything in front of [her] to negate the agreement” and was

“not going to try and back door” the agreement made by her colleague. The prosecutor

ultimately asked the District Court to honor the agreed sentencing recommendation, but

stated before doing so that:

       I just hope that [Yates] takes this as . . . a real gift from the court if the court
       goes along with this. Because this could have . . . been so much worse, in
       the State’s opinion.

The second prosecutor ultimately offered no explanation or justification in support of the

plea agreement.

¶7     After hearing from the defense in support of the plea agreement, the District Court

rejected the plea agreement recommendation, and instead imposed a suspended three-year

Department of Corrections commitment.1 The Court reasoned that it was “not comfortable

giving [Yates] a deferred sentence” based on the information included in his presentence

1
  Unlike the deferred imposition of sentence called for under the joint plea agreement
recommendation, the suspended sentence deprived Yates of the statutory opportunity, upon
successful completion of probation, to have the court strike the guilty plea and dismiss the case,
thus causing the conviction to no longer appear on his public criminal history record. See
§§ 46-18-201 and -204, MCA.

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investigation report, the alleged facts and circumstances of the case, and the court’s

resulting desire that the conviction remain on Yates’ public criminal history record due to

the “severe” injury he inflicted upon the child. Defense counsel immediately objected to

the sentence on the asserted ground that the prosecutor breached the plea agreement by

making comments intended to undermine the agreed sentencing recommendation because

“she thought [it] was possibly an inappropriate disposition.” The District Court responded

that it “didn’t consider . . . at all” the “situation between” the different prosecutors, but

instead considered the “severe” facts of the case and the “sentencing parameters” within

the possible maximum penalty. The court’s subsequent written sentencing rationale further

noted, inter alia, the “violent circumstances of the offense” and that two previously

charged, but ultimately dropped or dismissed, felony assault charges “illustrate[d] [Yates’]

propensity for violence.” In response to the defense objection at sentencing, the written

judgment asserted that the prosecutor “did not backtrack on [the] agreement”

recommendation.” Yates timely appeals.

¶8     Whether the State breached a plea agreement is a mixed question of law and fact

subject to de novo review. See State v. Collins, 2023 MT 78, ¶ 11, 412 Mont. 77, 528 P.3d

1106. We review related district court findings of fact only for clear error. Collins, ¶ 11.

Within the framework of § 46-12-211, MCA (plea agreement authorization), plea

agreements are contracts generally subject to applicable contract law standards, except as

subject to the overlay of fundamental federal and state constitutional rights implicated in a

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particular case. Collins, ¶ 14. Because a plea agreement induced guilty plea effects a

waiver of fundamental state and federal constitutional rights, criminal defendants:

       have a substantive [constitutional due process] right to be treated fairly
       throughout the plea-bargaining process. A prosecutor must [thus] meet strict
       and meticulous standards of both promise and performance relating to plea
       agreements, because a guilty plea resting on an unfulfilled promise in a plea
       bargain is involuntary. Prosecutorial violations, even if made inadvertently
       or in good faith to obtain a just and mutually desired end, are unacceptable.

Collins, ¶ 14 (internal punctuation and citations omitted). Consequently, prosecutors must

present the State’s case at sentencing:

       in a good faith and fair manner that is [neither] clearly intended [n]or likely
       to undermine the plea agreement, including [any agreed] sentencing
       recommendation . . . . [The] prosecutor cannot pay mere “lip service” to the
       agreement by making the agreed sentencing recommendation while
       presenting the case in a manner intended [or likely] to persuade the court that
       the sentence recommendation should not be accepted.

Collins, ¶ 15 (internal punctuation and citations omitted). Because “there are no hard and

fast criteria” that distinguish “when a prosecutor has merely paid lip service to a plea

agreement as opposed to . . . fairly present[ing] the State’s case,” each alleged prosecutorial

breach of a plea agreement must be assessed under the unique circumstances of each case.

Collins, ¶ 15 (citation omitted).

¶9     A prosecutor may “undermine” and thus “breach a plea agreement” by, inter alia,

“emphasizing negative information about the defendant without fully explaining the

justification for the agreed sentencing recommendation.” Collins, ¶ 16. Unless barred by

the express terms of the plea agreement, a prosecutor may generally note unflattering

information relevant to sentencing in a particular case if “within the scope of information

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required or authorized by statute” for court consideration at sentencing. Collins, ¶ 17. The

prosecutor may do so, however, only if “the case is presented in a fair manner not likely to

undermine the plea agreement by influencing the court to deviate from the sentence

recommendation.” Collins, ¶ 17.

¶10    Applying those fundamental principles here, the prosecutor’s request that the

District Court honor the plea agreement recommendation was wholly undermined, if not

contradicted, by her unnecessary emphasis of Yates’ negative criminal history regarding

previously dropped or dismissed assault charges and the State’s resulting “concern” about

that information; her statement of disbelief that she or her colleague had previously

approved such an agreement; her failure to provide any favorable explanation or

justification in support of the plea agreement recommendation; and her remark that the

agreed recommendation would be “a real gift from the court if the court goes along with

this.” (Emphasis added.) The record manifests that all necessary relevant sentencing

information was independently available to the court as a matter of record in the charging

affidavit supporting the Information and the statutory presentence investigation report to

the court. Regardless of its disclaimer of reliance on the prosecutor’s comments at

sentencing, the essence of the District Court’s stated sentencing rationale directly

corresponded with the prosecutor’s disparaging negative comments and concerns, as

amplified in the absence of any proffered State explanation or justification in support of

the plea agreement.     Whether the court may have independently drawn the same

conclusions and thus independently deviated from the plea agreement recommendation is

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impossible to know in light of the prosecutor’s disparaging comments and failure to offer

any positive explanation in support of the plea agreement. The District Court’s after-the-

fact disavowal of reliance on the prosecutor’s statements does not alter that fact.

Juxtaposed against her other disparaging remarks and lack of explanation in support of the

agreement, the prosecutor’s request that the court honor the plea agreement

recommendation was mere lip service. We hold that the prosecutor thus materially

breached an essential term of the plea agreement.

¶11   We decide this case by memorandum opinion pursuant to Section I, Paragraph 3(c),

of our Internal Operating Rules. The sentence imposed by the District Court in this matter

is hereby reversed, and this matter is thus remanded for resentencing subject to

§ 3-1-804(12), MCA.

                                                /S/ DIRK M. SANDEFUR

We concur:

/S/ MIKE McGRATH
/S/ BETH BAKER
/S/ INGRID GUSTAFSON
/S/ JIM RICE

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