Court Opinion

ID: 9691229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:17:40.465065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:13.718506
License: Public Domain

HEFFERNAN, CHIEF JUSTICE
(concurring). Though reasonable people can differ as to whether Cecchini procedure (State v. Cecchini, 124 Wis. 2d 200, 368 N.W.2d 830 (1985)) is constitutionally mandated, the standards for judicial administration set up by Cecchini were sensible and should be adhered to. Cecchini established that a complete record of a defendant's understanding of a plea be made at the plea hearing. This procedure discourages postconviction attacks. The majority would allow for a post hoc cure of a deficient plea hearing by admitting evidence at the postconviction hearing. At pages 251-252. Though I *299support flexible plea hearing procedures1 for establishing that pleas are intelligently and voluntarily made — such as allowing the judge to incorporate by reference evidence from earlier proceedings to establish "knowing and voluntary" — a postconviction cure procedure simply means there will be one or more evidentiary hearings on the plea withdrawal issue.
Furthermore, by shifting the burden of persuasion to the prosecutor in sec. 974.02, Stats., hearings, the majority puts an undue burden on already overworked prosecutors. The majority's justification — that this will provide the necessary incentive for prosecutors to see that the job is done right the first time at the plea hearing-^-though commendable, may be illusory. If we take our lesson from experience under Cecchini, where the consequence of a defective plea hearing was withdrawal of plea as a matter of right, it is far from clear that the prosecutor's supporting role of assisting the trial court to implement plea procedures will in fact reduce plea-hearing errors. Under Cecchini, court calendars remained crowded with postconviction motions to withdraw pleas.
Finally, the majority seeks compliance with plea-hearing procedures by an in terrorem coercion of trial judges: "Intentional failure to follow such mandate could be grounds for judicial discipline." At page 279. I feel that this threat is an idle one. Judges are most unlikely to intentionally neglect their duties. But in the absence of a structured hearing which encompasses all the statutory requirements for a guilty-plea hearing, errors are more likely to occur. Cecchini procedurally was working well. It would have been sufficient to *300place Cecchini's foundation upon the statute. This would have avoided the problems of retroactivity that Cecchini has raised. I feel that we have imposed a new and additional cumbersome procedure that will serve to clog the course of justice and place new burdens on judges and prosecutors.
I concur.
I am authorized to state that JUSTICES ABRAHAMSON and BABLITCH join in this concurrence.

 State v. Bartelt, 112 Wis. 2d 467, 483 n. 3, 334 N.W.2d 91 (1983).