Court Opinion

ID: 9621199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:53:21.901322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:05:09.407832
License: Public Domain

KLEINSCHMIDT, Judge,
dissenting.
¶ 112 I respectfully dissent. I think that fundamental fairness requires that persons who plead guilty to violent sex crimes must be advised that they might be detained for life under the Sexually Violent Persons Act. All of these petitioners pled guilty without knowing about the Act. All of them have served their sentences, so setting aside their pleas would be an inadequate remedy. The relief they are entitled to is exclusion from the provisions of the Act. See Brock v. Weston, 31 F.3d 887 (9th Cir.1994).
¶ 113 I would accept jurisdiction, grant relief and decline to address the remaining issues because several of the more serious of those issues turn on the adequacy of the treatment afforded to persons detained under the Act. In my opinion, the record is inadequate to permit an informed judgment on that point.
¶ 114 The majority concludes that the petitioners are subject to the Act even though they were not informed that it could be applied to them. The majority bases this conclusion on the view that the possibility that the petitioners would be detained under the Act is a collateral consequence of the plea because the Act does not have a “definite, immediate and automatic effect on the range of the defendant’s punishment.” See Appeal in Yuma County Juvenile Action No. J-95-63, 183 Ariz. 228, 231, 902 P.2d 834, 837 (App.1995).
¶ 115 The first problem with the majority’s conclusion is that it does not acknowledge that exposure to the process provided for in the Act, as opposed to ultimate detention under the Act following trial, is certain enough, and punitive enough, to be a consequence of the plea in and of itself. Every person who has pled guilty to a violent sexual offense and who has served his sentence is, at the discretion of a prosecutor, subject to continued detention. Assuming the existence of probable cause, every such person is subject to trial and detention up to and during trial, with all of the loss of freedom, aggravation, and anxiety that such entails.
¶ 116 Even if one accepts the majority’s premise that the relevant inquiry is whether a person will be detained following trial under the Act, there is a problem with the majority’s application of the general rule that anything that does not automatically ensue from a plea is a collateral effect of the plea. Given the magnitude of the risk here — confinement for life — the application of the general rule is too formulaic. Every guilty plea is the result of a risk benefit analysis. It is not just the likelihood of a harm that must be weighed, but the magnitude of the harm that might ensue from a plea of guilty that must be taken into account. A prudent person may hesitate, and indeed refuse, to undertake a risk of catastrophic harm even if the chance that the harm will occur is low. An approach that makes the certainty of an event the sole touchstone of whether that event is a consequence of the plea may work well for the ordinary risk, but when it comes to the risk of indefinite detention, that formula is too rigid to meet the standard of fundamental fairness.
¶ 117 Courts do recognize that some consequences are not collateral, even though they are contingent. This is particularly true where the consequence involved is very serious. For example, when the question is *324whether defendants who plead guilty to multiple crimes must be told that they can receive consecutive sentences — which are not imposed automatically — many jurisdictions require that defendants be advised of that possibility. See State v. White, 587 N.W.2d 240 (Iowa 1998), and cases cited therein. The only reason Arizona does not require defendants to be advised of the possibility of consecutive sentences is not that such sentences are contingent as opposed to automatic, but that the Supreme Court of Arizona has said that the possibility of receiving consecutive sentences for multiple crimes is so obvious that everyone is presumed to know it. See State v. Wesley, 131 Ariz. 246, 248, 640 P.2d 177, 179 (1982); State v. Gordon, 125 Ariz. 425, 427, 610 P.2d 59, 61 (1980); and State v. Young, 106 Ariz. 589, 590, 480 P.2d 345, 346 (1971).
¶ 118 A case that illustrates that even contingent possibilities can be a direct consequence of a plea, in a context quite similar to the case now before us, is Ashley v. State, 614 So.2d 486 (Fla.1993). There the state sought to impose the sentence-enhancing provisions of a habitual offender act upon a defendant who had pled guilty without being advised, as required by a rule of criminal procedure, of the state’s intent to invoke the act. The court was aware of an earlier decision of another Florida appellate court in Zambuto v. State, 413 So.2d 461 (Fla.App. 1982), which held that the imposition of the habitual offender act was a mere collateral consequence of the plea because its application depended on specific factual findings and an exercise of the court’s discretion. The court noted the existence of Zambuto but, without explanation, refused to follow it. Ashley, 614 So.2d at 489 n. 5. The court ruled that the defendant was not subject to the habitual offender law.
¶ 119 The next problem I see with the majority’s conclusion is that the risk to these petitioners of being found to be sexually violent persons and detained indefinitely thereafter is far more than a “conceivable effect” of the plea.26 It is highly probable that all of these petitioners will be subjected to indefinite detention or other severe restriction. If a petitioner fits the Act’s definition of a sexually violent person, the result is a foregone conclusion. Even if a petitioner does not objectively fit the definition of a sexually violent person, the prior conviction, the accusation, popular fear of violent sex crime, and indifference to the fate of these pariahs will make a fair adjudication very difficult.27
¶ 120 Having concluded that all of these petitioners are entitled to relief, I turn to the explanation of why I would not address the remaining issues in the case. I think a piecemeal approach to the issues should be avoided, and the resolution of several of the most serious constitutional challenges the petitioners raise — for example, double jeopardy and ex post facto — depends on whether the act is civil and regulatory as opposed to criminal and punitive. As the State in its briefs and the majority in its opinion concede, that question turns on the adequacy of the treatment afforded the persons detained under the Act. See Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 117 S.Ct. 2072, 138 L.Ed.2d 501 (1997). The record before us does not provide enough information on this question to allow a considered judgment on the validity of the statute.
¶ 121 It is true that the trial judge found that the petitioners were to be housed at a facility separate and apart from the prison and that the State had hired an expert to *325devise a treatment program for them. The statute was new and there was little experience to go on so the trial judge, in essence, took it on faith that there would be a genuine effort to treat the petitioners.
¶ 122 Unlike the trial judge, I am not willing to trust the State on this point. The State’s record in caring for and treating the mentally ill is not a good one. While I believe that the State is notorious for its indifference in this regard,28 there is more specific support for my skepticism. Ten years ago, in Arnold v. Department of Health Services, 160 Ariz. 593, 775 P.2d 521 (1989), our supreme court noted that Arizona was last among all of the states in providing care for the chronically mentally ill. The court found that both state and county governments had failed to provide mandated mental health care to such persons. The opinion, among other things, cited the testimony of an expert witness who said that there was “no system at all” and that what care that did exist was “chaotic.” Id. at 599, 775 P.2d at 527. The supreme court upheld the trial court’s order directing the respective agencies to provide the required care.
¶ 123 Ten years after the supreme court decided Arnold, that ease remains open. The superior court retains jurisdiction of the matter in an attempt to see that the mandate for care is carried out. As recently as March 1 of this year, the judge who oversees the case, during the course of a status conference, expressed concern about delay in implementing programs and sought additional information from the Department of Health Services and the Governor’s Office regarding proposed funding. See Minute Entry dated March 1, 1999, in Arnold v. Sam, No. C-432355 (Superior Court of Maricopa County). I see no reason to believe that the State will make any more real effort to treat these petitioners than it has made to treat the mentally ill who have proven to be relatively harmless.
¶ 124 In conclusion, while I am not willing to say that the petitioners have carried their burden of demonstrating that the Act is unconstitutional because treatment is illusory, I would not proceed, when it is not necessary for the resolution of this matter, to entrench the notion that the treatment available is adequate to justify categorizing the Act as civil in nature.

. See State v. Rodriguez, 17 Ariz.App. 553, 554, 499 P.2d 167, 168 (1972) (defendants need not be advised of every conceivable effect of the plea).

. In one case that has gone to trial under the Act, the defendant was acquitted. There, however, the defendant had served his sentence and had been released. Seven years later he was convicted of failing to register as a sex offender and after his sentence for this conviction was served the state invoked the Sexually Violent Persons Act. Evidence was admitted to show that the defendant had lived in the community for seven years without being charged with other offenses. See record in State v. Boggess, No. CV 98-09206 (Maricopa County Superior Court). An appellate court may take judicial notice of the content of the record in other cases. See Scottsdale Mem'l Health Sys., Inc. v. Clark, 157 Ariz. 461, 468, 759 P.2d 607, 614 (1988); State v. Valenzuela, 109 Ariz. 109, 110, 506 P.2d 240, 241 (1973); Udall, et al., Arizona Practice, The Law of Evidence § 152 (3d ed.1991).

. Judicial notice as to matters of common knowledge is a broad concept in Arizona. See, e.g., Miceli v. Industrial Comm’n, 135 Ariz. 71, 659 P.2d 30 (1983) (Tucson had ample supply of psychiatric specialists); International Bhd. of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local No. 857 v. Todd L. Storms Constr. Co., 84 Ariz. 120, 324 P.2d 1002 (1958) (economic effect of picketing); Doan v. Board of Supervisors, 21 Ariz. 240, 187 P. 265 (1920) (Counties pay exorbitant interest on indebtedness).