Court Opinion

ID: 9735004
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:56:17.881288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:53.692889
License: Public Domain

Irwin, Judge,
dissenting.
Although I agree that Alba’s sentences must be set aside and the case remanded for further proceedings, I do not agree with the disposition proposed by the majority, and I therefore dissent. I do not agree that the appropriate remedy is to place the burden of the mutual mistake made by Alba, the State, and the trial court solely on the State and allow Alba to unilaterally benefit from the mutual mistake by being sentenced in a fashion nobody had contemplated or agreed to when entering the plea agreement. I believe the appropriate remedy is to withdraw the plea as invalid and allow the parties to negotiate an entirely new plea agreement.
It is important to emphasize that the majority opinion recognizes that the tenets of State v. Irish, 223 Neb. 814, 394 N.W.2d 879 (1986), were not complied with because Alba was *536not properly advised concerning the potential range of penalties to which his plea would subject him. It is fundamental in the plea-taking process that the trial court must examine the defendant and determine that he understands the range of penalties for the crime with which he is charged. See id. As such, the failure of the district court in this case to properly advise Alba concerning the range of penalties necessitates that the plea be withdrawn entirely. This is also consistent with the State’s requested resolution of this case.
The Nebraska Supreme Court has clearly held that the State may withdraw from a plea bargain agreement at any time prior to, but not after, the actual entry of the guilty plea by the defendant or other action by him constituting detrimental reliance upon the agreement. See, State v. Dillon, 224 Neb. 503, 398 N.W.2d 718 (1987); State ex rel. Fortner v. Urbom, 211 Neb. 309, 318 N.W.2d 286 (1982). Inasmuch as no plea has validly been entered or accepted, the law in Nebraska clearly indicates that the State has the lawful ability to withdraw the plea agreement for any reason or, indeed, without giving a reason at all. See State ex rel. Fortner v. Urbom, supra. It is only more apparent that the State should have that right in this case, where it is clear that both Alba and the State were operating under a mutual mistake of law when negotiating the plea agreement.
The effect of the majority opinion is to suggest that plea agreements are essentially only for the benefit of the defendant and that the defendant is the only one who can assert prejudice from a mutual mistake in the plea process. There is little doubt that on this exact same fact pattern, the defendant would be entitled to withdraw his plea because of the failure to comply with State v. Irish, supra. The basis for allowing such a withdrawal would simply be that the plea was not valid because the tenets of State v. Irish had not been complied with. This is no less true where everyone, the court included, was mistaken concerning the law and the offense gradation that was central to the plea agreement and its negotiation. It is notable that the majority cites to no authority for the proposition that although “the penalty advisory was plainly error,” the error can simply be overlooked because the defendant received the benefit of a mutual mistake that he was part of creating. The majority concludes that Alba *537has “waived” any such error. However, the majority offers no explanation for why this error should simply be overlooked on the one hand and why on the other hand, “due process requires” that we attribute to Alba the expectation that his sentence would be within a range not contemplated by anyone involved in the plea process, even though Alba “does not complain of any due process violation” from the mutual mistake.
The primary authority that is relied upon by the majority for allowing the defendant to benefit from this mistake is distinguishable. In State v. Patience, 944 P.2d 381 (Utah App. 1997), the court recognized that the prosecutor is usually allowed to unilaterally rescind a plea agreement only where the defendant has breached the agreement. However, the authority relied on by the Utah court in reaching that conclusion was a case where the plea had lawfully been accepted and the State subsequently failed to comply with provisions of the agreement, not a case where the plea itself was not valid. See State v. Copeland, 765 P.2d 1266 (Utah 1988). A careful review of State v. Patience indicates that the Utah court’s decision to order a new sentence, rather than to find the plea itself was invalid, was motivated primarily because the factual circumstances demonstrated that the legislature had changed the gradation of the offense after the information was filed and that by law, the defendant was entitled to the benefit of that change in legislation. Such is not the situation in the present case where, rather than being a legislative change, the error in the plea agreement was simply a mutual mistake by everyone involved concerning the proper gradation of the offense.
In Coy v. Fields, 200 Ariz. 442,27 P.3d 799 (Ariz. App. 2001), the court similarly ordered that a new sentence be imposed and remanded the case for a new sentence. However, the Arizona court noted that the sentencing court would be free to impose a harsher sentence and deny probation entirely. Although Coy v. Fields is similar to the present case in that the mutual mistake concerned the possible penalty which might be imposed, the Arizona case is also significantly different from the present case because in the present case, everyone involved was mistaken as to the entire range of penalties which might be imposed, whereas in Coy v. Fields, the mistake was merely concerning part of the *538potential sentence, if probation was actually imposed. And even to the extent Coy v. Fields supports the majority’s position that the prosecutor bears some risk when everyone involved is equally mistaken during the plea negotiations, the result in Coy v. Fields was that the prosecutor was still able to receive the majority of the bargain negotiated and, in fact, the Arizona court even recognized that the new sentence to be imposed might be more harsh than what was initially imposed. The present case is far different, where the majority proposes to remove the State’s negotiated range of sentences from two consecutive terms of 1 to 50 years’ imprisonment and instead allow the defendant to choose a range of sentences of 0 to 5 years’ imprisonment.
Moreover, I disagree with the notion that the State should be the party held solely responsible for the mistake in this case. Nobody involved with this case has disputed, and the majority recognizes, that everyone — including Alba (through his counsel), the State, and the trial court — was mistaken concerning the proper gradation of the offense. Moreover, everyone agrees that the parties operated under this mistaken belief during the entire plea negotiation.
There is nothing in the record of this case to support the majority’s speculation that the potential range of sentences which would be available to the sentencing court was not an important, or even crucial, factor in the State’s willingness to enter a plea agreement and reduce the charges. The majority, while arguing that the minimum portion of the sentencing range would have been reduced from 5 years’ imprisonment if the crimes had been prosecuted as the originally charged Class IC felonies to 1 year’s imprisonment if the crimes were actually Class II felonies as the parties believed, then dismisses the fact that the maximum possible sentence under both gradations would have been the same — 50 years’ imprisonment. Although it is often repeated in Nebraska case law that the minimum portion of an indeterminate sentence is the measure of the sentence’s severity, the issue in this case is not the severity of a sentence imposed, but, rather, the importance of the possible sentencing range in persuading the State to reduce charges in the first place. The State’s position in this regard is far from “inherently illogical,” as the majority asserts, and is in fact entirely understandable and reasonable.
*539It has long been the law in Nebraska that “a person charged with the commission of a crime who has reached the age of accountability is conclusively presumed to know the law of the land, including both common law and statutory law.” Satterfield v. State, 172 Neb. 275, 280, 109 N.W.2d 415, 418-19 (1961). Inasmuch as it is axiomatic that ignorance is no excuse concerning the state of law, I cannot agree with the majority’s assertion that Alba is “really the only person involved in the plea agreement, and the plea itself, who cannot be faulted for not knowing” the proper gradation of the offense. There is simply no support for the notion that a criminal defendant, especially one represented by counsel, is somehow not accountable for knowing the law when negotiating a plea agreement.
A review of the majority opinion makes it clear that there is a split of authority in other jurisdictions concerning the proper remedy for a situation such as the present one. Although the majority goes to great lengths to discuss and distinguish cases which would allow the State to rescind the plea agreement, there is no clear indication why the factual distinction that some of those cases involved specific recommendations for a sentence rather than a negotiated range of sentences like in the present case is a significant legal distinction. Further, the cases which support the notion that the State should not be allowed to rescind the agreement are just as “technically” distinguishable, as noted above in this dissent. The bottom line is that a reading of cases from other jurisdictions handling this problem suggests that the factual details brought out in the majority opinion and in this dissent were not the motivating factors in the cases’ resolutions. Rather, the cases indicate a difference of opinion about whether to declare the plea itself invalid or to merely hold that the prosecutor made a bad bargain and should be accountable for it.
In the present case, the binding law of Nebraska dictates that Alba was never properly advised prior to acceptance of his plea. As such, the plea must be declared invalid and must be withdrawn. The binding law of Nebraska further holds that the State may unilaterally withdraw a plea offer at any time before the plea has been validly accepted, even for no reason whatsoever. As such, I would follow the guidance of our Supreme Court and apply it to the facts of this case to conclude that the case should *540be remanded and the plea be withdrawn. Both parties should be equally free to determine their own course of conduct at that stage.