Court Opinion

ID: 9766105
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:32:23.734039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:19.459661
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
¶ 16. dissenting. I cannot
agree with the majority that the complete absence of a Rule 11 colloquy with a defendant who did not speak English was a mere technical violation that did not affect the voluntariness of defendant’s plea. Neither can I agree that the majority opinion correctly applies our law under Rule 11. The standard for prejudice this Court applies in reviewing a petition for post-conviction relief does not focus on whether or not defendant would have entered the plea but for the Rule 11 violation; the focus is on whether or not there is prejudice to the plea itself if defendant entered into it without an explanation of his rights. When the correct standard is applied, and the totality of circumstances is considered, the plea in this case was involuntary. I would reverse, and therefore I respectfully dissent.
¶ 17. This case presents an unfortunate combination of circumstances. Defendant spoke no English at the time the plea was taken. All the critical legal issues, including those mandated by Rule 11, concerning what the plea meant, what rights defendant was giving up, and what defendant understood would be the collateral consequences of the plea (possible deportation), were allegedly explained to him by his attorney, David Nicholson. Defendant’s former wife, Roberta Pratt, acted as interpreter between defendant and his attorney, but she was not in court on the day defendant pled guilty.* On that day, a court interpreter was present whom defendant says he could not understand. While the interpreter provided *537simultaneous translation of the proceeding, defendant did not say a single word. Even if he did understand the interpreter, there is no colloquy in open court with defendant about the voluntariness of his plea. Defendant signed a standard waiver of his rights in English. This is meaningless because defendant neither spoke nor read English.
¶ 18. The attack on the guilty plea came about over an issue of collateral consequences. At the PCR hearing, defendant testified that because of his language problems he did not even understand the word guilty. He asserts that he did what his lawyer told him to do because he was told that he would avoid deportation. Defendant’s story is at least consistent with the fact that the state’s attorney had reduced the felony charges against defendant to misdemeanors to help defendant avoid deportation. The federal immigration authorities viewed the situation differently and initiated deportation proceedings. The issues at the PCR hearing revolved around the voluntariness of defendant’s plea. Defendant claimed he did not understand the plea proceedings. His attorney, Nicholson, claims defendant was fully advised and that he made no guarantees about deportation. The trial court found against defendant on this issue. If this case were just about whether or not defendant’s counsel had coerced him into pleading guilty, or had been ineffective in advising him about collateral consequences, I would agree that defendant did not carry his burden at the PCR hearing.
¶ 19. Defendant’s second ground for relief, however, was that the plea was involuntary because of the Rule 11(c) and (d) violations, and should be vacated on that ground. Despite the fact that there was no colloquy with defendant, the trial court rejected this claim by finding there was “substantial compliance” with Rule 11. Moreover, it ruled that because defendant had reason to enter the guilty plea anyway (to avoid deportation), he could not have been prejudiced by the Rule 11 violations. The majority agrees with this interpretation of our Rule 11 jurisprudence and holds that defendant must show, in effect, that he would not have entered the plea, absent the Rule 11 violation. I disagree that this is our law.
¶ 20. The question the Rule 11 colloquy answers is whether the plea of guilty is voluntarily and knowingly made by the defendant. State v. Yates, 169 Vt. 20, 25, 726 A.2d 483, 486 (1999); In re Thompson, 166 Vt. 471, 474, 697 A.2d 1111, 1113 (1997); Reporter’s Notes, V.R.Cr.P. 11. A plea is not voluntary if the defendant does not understand the nature of the charges against him, what it means to plead guilty, and what rights he is giving up that inhere in a fair trial. See, e.g., State v. Louthan, 595 N.W.2d 917, 921-22 (Neb. 1999) (to establish voluntariness of guilty plea, court must examine defendant to determine that he understands that by pleading guilty he waives his privilege against self-incrimination, right to confront witnesses, and right to a jury trial); In re Kasper, 145 Vt. 117, 119, 483 A.2d 608, 609 (1984) (plea cannot be voluntary unless defendant possesses an understanding of the law in relation to the facts). An involuntary plea is a violation of due process. See Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 618 (1998) (“A plea of guilty is constitutionally valid only to the extent it is voluntary and intelligent.”) (internal quotations omitted); Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 748 (1970) (“Waivers of constitutional rights not only must be voluntary but must be knowing, intelligent acts done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.”); McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 466 (1969) (“[I]f a defendant’s guilty plea is not... voluntary and knowing, it has been obtained in violation of due process and is therefore void.”). We adopted McCarthy in State v. Yates, 169 Vt. at 25, 726 A.2d at 487.
*538¶ 21. To ensure due process, the standard of review on the voluntariness of a plea cannot be that there were good reasons for the defendant to enter the plea, even if he did not know what rights he was giving up. Rather, the focus must be on the defendant’s understanding of those rights, no matter how advantageous the plea agreement may have been, or how much he wanted it. We presume that the plea agreement is made because the defendant wants it, but the defendant has to want it after being advised in open court of the rights he is giving up in exchange. This is the meaning of prejudice to the plea, the standard we referred to in State v. Boskind, 174 Vt. 184, 193, 807 A.2d 358, 366 (2002) (holding that in post-conviction relief proceeding “the burden is on defendants to prove that their respective trial courts did not substantially comply with V.R.Cr.P. 11 in accepting their plea agreements and that this noncompliance prejudiced their pleas.") (emphasis added). Otherwise, there is no point in engaging in the Rule 11 colloquy to determine voluntariness.
¶ 22. Indeed, our very recent jurisprudence has looked at the voluntariness question in precisely this manner. In In re J.M., 172 Vt. 61, 769 A.2d 656 (2001), the complete lack of a Rule 11 colloquy was raised on direct appeal. We vacated the plea as plain error because the court did not inquire of J.M. whether he understood the charges against him, understood the penalties provided by law, understood he was waiving important constitutional rights, and if his plea was knowing and voluntary. “The brief exchange that took place was between the court and the attorneys, and this exchange was more to ensure that the paperwork was filled out properly than to fulfill the requirements of Rule 11____ As a result, we must vacate J.M.’s admission.” Id. at 63, 769 A.2d at 658-59. In other words, despite the fact that J.M. was represented by counsel and some limited colloquy with counsel took place, we could not satisfy ourselves from the record that there were any indicia of reliability to the plea. Therefore, we could not uphold it. Even more recently, in In re Quinn, 174 Vt. 562, 564-65, 816 A.2d 425, 428 (2002) (mem.), a post-conviction relief proceeding where prejudice is required, we invalidated a guilty plea as involuntary despite the defendant’s statement in open court that his plea was voluntary, because there was evidence of coercion by his attorney. Other circumstances surrounding the plea failed to provide assurance the plea was voluntary; defendant had been depressed and had recently attempted suicide. In Quinn, the prejudice that we considered was prejudice to the voluntariness of the plea. Id. at 563, 816 A.2d at 426 (holding that a “court’s finding of fundamental error in the acceptance of a guilty plea is sufficient to award [post-conviction] relief’). Even though Quinn was a PCR, we did not review the plea from the standpoint of what consequences the defendant avoided by entering the plea.
¶ 23. The situations presented in J.M. and Quinn are different from the many Rule 11 cases we review presenting mere technical violations that do not go to the heart of voluntariness. For example, we have held where there is partial, but not strict, compliance with Rule 11, and there are other indicia of voluntariness, that the plea is valid. See, e.g., State v. Mor-rissette, 170 Vt. 569, 571, 743 A.2d 1091, 1093 (1999) (mem.) (not looking at the desirability of the plea agreement but finding the following indicia of voluntariness to render defendant’s guilty plea valid: lack of evidence that defendant was not competent to understand his situation, defendant’s execution of waiver forms, court’s inquiry confirming that defendant understood these documents, and defendant’s stipulation to factual basis for charge); Thompson, 166 Vt. at 476, 697 A.2d at 1114 (Court assured of *539substantial compliance with Rule 11(c) by-fact that petitioner’s dialogue with court during plea hearing “plainly indicated that he had reviewed the forms with his attorneys” and following additional explanations of the forms he had signed, petitioner “ejqpressed satisfaction with the agreements”).
¶ 24. Here, the totality of the circumstances does not support a conclusion that the plea was voluntary. See Quinn, 174 Vt. at 565, 816 A.2d at 428 (looking at “the totality of the circumstances surrounding petitioner’s pleas”). First, contrary to the trial court’s holding, this is not merely a technical violation of Rule 11 where we might be able to find substantial compliance by looking at the surrounding circumstances. Like the record in J.M., it is bare. There is not even a partial colloquy to which we might turn to satisfy ourselves that defendant, through the court’s interpreter, understood that he was pleading guilty and waiving his rights. Second, we cannot rely on Nicholson, defendant’s attorney, who claimed to have advised him of his rights at a time other than the day of the plea through an interpreter. Nicholson does not speak Spanish and the interpreter he used, Roberta Pratt, did not testify at the PCR hearing. Under these circumstances, I do not understand how Nicholson can provide the evidentiary foundation necessary for the trial court to find that defendant understood his rights and that his plea was knowing and voluntary. Moreover, contrary to the findings of the PCR court, Nicholson was concerned that Pratt’s Spanish was not all that good. He described it as “halting,” and he feared that defendant did not really understand what was going on. Nicholson added that defendant always tried to be very pleasant and accommodating, so “a lot of times he would indicate that he understood things, where I didn’t really think he did.” Third, we cannot rely on the written waiver, not written in Spanish, for obvious reasons. In short, there is nothing from the record or the surrounding circumstances that, gives us any confidence that defendant knowingly waived his rights. On the contrary, given the language barrier, we have every reason to doubt voluntariness, and therefore, I dissent.
¶ 25.1 am authorized to state that Justice Dooley joins in this dissent.

 The trial court’s Finding #4 indicates that Roberta Pratt was present at the change of plea hearing, but this finding is clearly erroneous. The transcript of the hearing includes reference to a court-provided Spanish interpreter, and defendant testified during the PCR hearing that Roberta Pratt was not present at the plea hearing. The trial court’s finding that Pratt was present is apparently based upon Nicholson’s statement that he “believe[d]” Pratt was at the hearing, but Nicholson had no specific recollection that Pratt was present. Whether or not Pratt was there, however, does not change the fact that Pratt had no obligation to explain the rights defendant was about to waive. That obligation belonged to the court, which utterly failed to perform it.