On Point: 21. Guilty pleas

State v. Ali Mursal, 2013 WI App 125; case activity

Before accepting a defendant’s guilty or no contest plea the court is required to advise the defendant there may be immigration consequences. Wis. Stat. § 971.08(1)(c). While that statute prescribes a text for the required warning—complete with quotation marks—the court of appeals holds in this case that a judge’s failure to repeat that language verbatim is not by itself grounds for plea withdrawal.

State v. James C. Hudson, 2013 WI App 120; case activity

Hudson’s untrue statements to persons to get them to invest in his country music career provided a factual basis for his plea to two violations of ch. 551’s prohibition against making untrue statements of material fact in connection with the sale of a “security” because his conduct involved “securities.” A security includes an “investment contract,” which under § 551.102(28)(d)1.

State v. Myron C. Dillard, 2013 WI App 108, petition for review granted, 2/19/14, affirmed, 2014 WI 123; case activity

Dillard accepted a plea bargain under which a persistent repeater allegation was dismissed, thus apparently reducing his maximum penalty exposure by avoiding a mandatory life sentence without prospect of release. But Dillard was not really subject to the persistent repeater law,

State v. Julius C. Burton, 2013 WI 61, affirming unpublished court of appeals decision; unanimous opinion by Justice Prosser; case activity

In a case of interest primarily, if not exclusively, to lawyers handling postconviction proceedings in state courts, the supreme court holds Burton’s plea withdrawal motion was insufficient to merit an evidentiary hearing because it failed to allege sufficient facts to support either the ineffective assistance of counsel claim or the claim Burton’s plea was invalid because of a defective plea colloquy.

United States. v. Anthony Davila, USSC No. 12-167, 6/13/13

United States Supreme Court decision, reversing United States v. Davila, 664 F.3d 1355 (11th Cir. 2011) (per curiam)

Rule 11(c)(1) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that parties may discuss and reach a plea agreement, but that the court “must not participate in these discussions.” In this case there is not dispute that a Magistrate Judge violated Rule 11(c)(1) by improperly participating in plea discussions by engaging in “repeated exhortations”

State v. Aaron L. Wood, 2013 WI App 88; case activity

The state did not breach the plea agreement where the prosecutor, after making the agreed-upon recommendation, expressed alarm and concern at what he discovered in the PSI after the plea agreement was made and referred in his sentencing argument to the negative portions of the PSI. State v. Williams, 2002 WI 1,

State v. London Mack Stewart, 2013 WI App 86; case activity

Stewart was convicted of reckless injury, reckless endangerment, and felon in possession after he shot at and injured a police officer executing a warrant at a home where Stewart was staying. (¶2). Under the plea agreement the state agreed to recommend a “global” 25-year sentence (15 in, 10 out); the state did so, but the injured officer,

State v. Juan M. Rodriguez-Faustino, 2012AP2777, District 1, May 29, 2013; court of appeals decision (1-judge; ineligible for publication); case activity

Rodriguez-Faustino pled to a misdemeanor drug offense and, in January 2007, was placed on probation for 12 months. (¶¶4-5). In September 2012 he filed a motion to withdraw his plea, asserting his attorney was ineffective under Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 1475‑1476 (2010),

State v. Edward Devon Smart, 2012AP1178-CR, District 1, 5/7/13; court of appeals decision (not recommended for publication); case activity

Smart is not entitled to plea withdrawal based on co-actor’s testimony that he coerced Smart to commit the crime because the coercion evidence could have been presented using other witnesses known to defendant before he entered his plea:

¶7        Smart argues that Rushing’s testimony is new because he did not know Rushing would testify that he forced Smart to rob the victims.  

State v. Nely B. Robles, 2013 WI App 76; case activity.

Issue:  When accepting a guilty plea is the circuit court required to specify whether the defendant is pleading to a felony or a misdemeanor?

Robles sought to withdraw her guilty plea on the grounds that the circuit court’s failure to specify the designation of the charged crime violated Wis. Stats.  § 971.08(1)(a)’s requirement that she be informed of the “nature of the charge.”