Court Opinion

ID: 9676101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:15:00.138868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:43.964383
License: Public Domain

FINE, J.
¶ 32. (dissenting). The Majority acknowledges that a decision whether to permit a defendant who has pled guilty to withdraw his guilty plea and avoid sentencing is vested in the trial court's discretion. "A trial court's discretionary decision to deny plea withdrawal will be upheld on appeal when the court *544'reached a reasonable conclusion based on the proper legal standard and a logical interpretation of the facts.'" State v. Leitner, 2001 WI App 172, ¶ 24, 247 Wis. 2d 195, 207-208, 633 N.W.2d 207, 212-213 (quoted source omitted). Here, the trial court was meticulous in the exercise of its discretion. The Majority, however, in my view, ignores this proper standard of review and substitutes what it believes should have been done based on its analysis of the very facts upon which the trial court relied.
¶ 33. As can be seen from the Majority's extensive recitation of the background leading to this appeal, Barry M. Jenkins had a hope, an "expectation" if you will, of what might happen if he was able to persuade the authorities that he had information sufficiently valuable to them for him to get some quid pro quo consideration. As the trial court pointed out in its lucid written decision denying Jenkins's motion for postcon-viction relief, however, this perception of a possible quid pro quo consideration did not result from anything that his lawyer or the State did to mislead him — there was scrupulous adherence to the plea bargain. Thus, the trial court explained in its written decision:
Here, there was not a "genuine misunderstanding" of the plea's consequences; the consequences of the plea were that the State would make a recommendation of 24 months initial confinement and 24 months extended supervision, and the court would fashion a sentence based on the seriousness of the offense, the defendant's character, and the need for community protection. The defendant may have thought that a more favorable sentence would have been imposed had he been able to connect with federal law enforcement authorities who would have appeared or spoken on his behalf, but this was not a part of the plea agreement. Consequently, there was no misunderstanding about the conse*545quences of the plea. For these reasons, there was not a fair and just reason to withdraw the plea.
(Emphasis by the trial court.) Indeed, the Majority concedes that here, unlike the situation in State v. Manke, 230 Wis. 2d 421, 430, 602 N.W.2d 139, 144 (Ct. App. 1999), the defendant did not base his alleged "misunderstanding" on misleading advice from his lawyer, by asserting in ¶ 24: "We do not see this as an ineffective assistance of counsel case, but instead a case that can be decided based on Jenkins's misunderstanding about whether he would be guaranteed an opportunity to work with law enforcement."
¶ 34. In my view, the Majority is setting new ground and creating new law by holding that what the trial court has found to be an unjustified and objectively unreasonable misperception by a defendant permits pre-sentence withdrawal of that defendant's plea. Significantly, the defendant has not shown beyond mere assertion either:
• that he is innocent of the charges, or, at least, that he has a reasonable chance of acquittal at a trial so that it would be "fair" to permit him to withdraw his guilty plea, or
• that the authorities lured him into pleading guilty.
The Majority finesses the first aspect, and its extensive recitation of the facts negates any inference that would support a finding on the second. Indeed, the trial court found that Jenkins was not misled by anyone. Further, despite Jenkins's sporadic assertions that he was misidentified, his appellate brief concedes that "[djuring the plea colloquy, the defendant told the court that he delivered the heroin to the undercover officers." Thus, there is ample support for the trial court's finding that Jenkins's post-plea contentions were not "credible in *546light of his own earlier words." Indeed, Jenkins even asserts that getting credit at sentencing was not the prime reason he wanted to work with law enforcement: "It's not too much about the time, you know. It's not much time. I've done, as you can read, I've done time before. My point is just to get some changes, you know, with myself and help." Majority, ¶ 12. Earlier in his colloquy with the trial court, Jenkins explained what apparently he meant by "help": "[F]rom much of the troubles I've caused and the stress we place on Milwaukee, the police department here in this state, and sort of abolish this heroin that's flowing into the states and guns and everything else, so sort of just kind of get myself cleared up and get back on track." Ibid. Clearly, the trial court did not believe Jenkins's sentencing-conversion expressions of concern for society and "stress" on the "police department."
¶ 35. Until now, it has been the law in this state that a defendant seeking to withdraw his plea must establish that he or she would have gone to trial — mere conclusory allegations are not enough. State v. Thornton, 2002 WI App 294, ¶ 27, 259 Wis. 2d 157, 178-179, 656 N.W.2d 45, 55. Here, we do not even have a "conclusory" allegation that Jenkins would have gone to trial. In my view, the trial court appropriately exercised its discretion, and I would affirm for that reason. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 36. I also want to reiterate what I have long contended, and, sadly, this case, though not through any fault of the Majority (because the case came to us after having been plea-bargained), is but another example: the plea-bargaining quadrille is an insult, not an enhancement, to justice. It is also, in my view, a tawdry auction, where both defendants and often the State (when it seeks to extort guilty pleas by the threat to *547up-the-ante if the defendant does not cave) seek what I see as an attempt to "game" justice — as in the typical auction, there are bids, reserves, and, ultimately, sales. As former federal judge Herbert J. Stern has written, "The present system has the flavor of a fish market. It ought to be hosed down." Herbert J. Stern, Book Review, 82 Colum. L. Rev. 1275, 1283 (1982) (reviewing Abraham S. Goldstein, The Passive Judiciary (1981)).