Court Opinion

ID: 9542159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:31:34.219554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:51.799040
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(concurring). The writer concurs with the majority holding that a defendant’s request to withdraw a guilty plea, made before sentence is imposed, is addressed to the discretion of the trial court, with the defendant required to establish, not a “manifest injustice,” but a “fair and just reason” for such request being granted. So reversal and remand are here required. However, the writer would remand for a new hearing and ruling on defendant’s request *130with the “fair-and-just-reason” test to be applied. Instead the majority makes its own ruling on defendant’s request. All that the defendant here has claimed is that his trial counsel “talked him into the plea by promising to see that he received ‘help’.” Only a hearing can determine what the reference to being “talked into” a plea involves. In addition to the issues of fact and credibility that only a hearing can resolve, the attorney whose professional conduct and good judgment are impugned should be allowed to testify as to what transpired and whether he “talked” his client into entering a plea of guilty. Only a hearing, followed by a decision based on a proper exercise of trial court discretion, can here determine whether or not the defendant has or can establish “fair and just reason” for his being permitted to withdraw his plea of guilty.