By Ben Solis
Gongwer News Service
When a court record raises a question of fact regarding the voluntariness of a plea agreement, a trial court must hold an evidentiary hearing to consider the totality of circumstances before it can be determined a plea was indeed involuntary, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Friday in a 5-2 decision.
In an opinion written by Justice Richard Bernstein, the high court’s majority in People v. Samuels (MSC Docket No. 164050) found the case record raised a question of fact regarding the defendant’s plea agreement and if it was involuntary.
Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement, Justice Megan Cavanagh, Justice Elizabeth Welch and Justice Kyra Harris Bolden joined the opinion, which reversed the appellate holding and remanded the case to the trial court to hold an evidentiary hearing.
Justice Brian Zahra, joined by Justice David Viviano, wrote a dissenting opinion in disagreement with the majority opinion.
The case involved the assault of a restaurant patron in Detroit, in which the trial court denied motions to withdraw a plea that resulted in a conviction and a 30-year maximum prison sentence.
The Court of Appeals denied leave, but the Supreme Court remanded for consideration. The Court of Appeals reaffirmed the ruling. Upon appeal, the high court was asked to determine if a trial court is required to hold an evidentiary hearing on the voluntariness of a guilty plea that is induced in part by an offer of leniency to a relative.
Bernstein wrote that the heart of the case concerned the voluntariness of the defendant’s plea, or rather, how voluntariness should be addressed in the context of a package-deal plea offered when the prosecution requires multiple defendants to agree to the offer for any one of them to benefit.
The justice and his colleagues in the majority wrote that, because the defendant successfully raised a question of fact and because his plea hearing testimony did not contradict the claim, the judgment should be reversed and remanded to the trial court.
“A defendant’s plea is involuntary if, under the totality of the circumstances, their will was overborne such that the decision to plead was not the product of free will,” Bernstein wrote. “We hold that a defendant may be entitled to an evidentiary hearing on the question of voluntariness where the record raises a question of fact as to whether the defendant’s plea was induced by a promise of leniency to a third party. At such an evidentiary hearing, the trial court must conduct a totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry, applying the non-exhaustive Ibarra factors where relevant.”
Zahra’s dissent did not mince words, noting that the case involved a decision of leniency to a criminal defendant who, “with the help of his twin brother, beat and shot a man in a Detroit coney island restaurant.”
“Presumably, then, we would now decide the procedure a trial court must apply when resolving a motion to withdraw a plea that is allegedly involuntary solely because it was part of a joint plea deal offered to a relative,” Zahra wrote. “But the majority opinion improvidently and without explanation ignores the scope of this appeal, the parties’ arguments, and the content of this court’s prior orders to hold that any defendant who pleads guilty as part of a joint plea offer may seek to withdraw the guilty plea based merely on the allegation that he or she was coerced by a promise of leniency to a third party. To be clear, no party briefed whether all joint pleas are de jure suspect because one of the defendants might have been coerced by an offer of leniency to a third party.”
Zahra added that the majority opinion “does not explain why it has fashioned its ruling wider than the scope of defendant’s appeal and briefing.”
“Specifically, the majority opinion directs lower courts to apply a test created in In re Ibarra whenever a defendant who pleaded guilty subject to a joint plea deal alleges that he or she was coerced by an offer of leniency to a codefendant,” he wrote. “The majority opinion claims that Ibarra’s application has been ‘adopted by other state courts,” and in support of this claim, the majority opinion cites opinions from four different state courts. But Ibarra is procedurally distinct from this case; therefore, it is inapposite. Likewise, none of the other state court opinions cited by the majority applied Ibarra’s test to motions to withdraw a guilty plea. This Court may be the first in the nation to apply Ibarra to a motion to withdraw a guilty plea.”
Zahra wrote that the distinction, here, was significant.
“In this case, the majority opinion provides defendants who enter a package plea deal contingent on other charged defendants also pleading guilty a period to revoke the plea by claiming involuntariness. This newly imposed requirement doubles the trial courts’ work, holding that in addition to MCR 6.302’s requirements at the plea-taking stage a trial court must also ‘apply the non-exhaustive Ibarra factors in conducting a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis to determine whether defendant voluntarily entered a guilty plea.’ Accordingly, a trial court may now have to conduct the same analysis twice before a joint
plea made to multiple defendants is final.”
The dissenting justice added: “Most importantly, however, is that the majority opinion is bad for the people of Michigan who expect our courts to run efficiently and equitably for all involved in our criminal justice system: defendants, victims, jurors, law enforcement, and witnesses.
Gongwer News Service
When a court record raises a question of fact regarding the voluntariness of a plea agreement, a trial court must hold an evidentiary hearing to consider the totality of circumstances before it can be determined a plea was indeed involuntary, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Friday in a 5-2 decision.
In an opinion written by Justice Richard Bernstein, the high court’s majority in People v. Samuels (MSC Docket No. 164050) found the case record raised a question of fact regarding the defendant’s plea agreement and if it was involuntary.
Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement, Justice Megan Cavanagh, Justice Elizabeth Welch and Justice Kyra Harris Bolden joined the opinion, which reversed the appellate holding and remanded the case to the trial court to hold an evidentiary hearing.
Justice Brian Zahra, joined by Justice David Viviano, wrote a dissenting opinion in disagreement with the majority opinion.
The case involved the assault of a restaurant patron in Detroit, in which the trial court denied motions to withdraw a plea that resulted in a conviction and a 30-year maximum prison sentence.
The Court of Appeals denied leave, but the Supreme Court remanded for consideration. The Court of Appeals reaffirmed the ruling. Upon appeal, the high court was asked to determine if a trial court is required to hold an evidentiary hearing on the voluntariness of a guilty plea that is induced in part by an offer of leniency to a relative.
Bernstein wrote that the heart of the case concerned the voluntariness of the defendant’s plea, or rather, how voluntariness should be addressed in the context of a package-deal plea offered when the prosecution requires multiple defendants to agree to the offer for any one of them to benefit.
The justice and his colleagues in the majority wrote that, because the defendant successfully raised a question of fact and because his plea hearing testimony did not contradict the claim, the judgment should be reversed and remanded to the trial court.
“A defendant’s plea is involuntary if, under the totality of the circumstances, their will was overborne such that the decision to plead was not the product of free will,” Bernstein wrote. “We hold that a defendant may be entitled to an evidentiary hearing on the question of voluntariness where the record raises a question of fact as to whether the defendant’s plea was induced by a promise of leniency to a third party. At such an evidentiary hearing, the trial court must conduct a totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry, applying the non-exhaustive Ibarra factors where relevant.”
Zahra’s dissent did not mince words, noting that the case involved a decision of leniency to a criminal defendant who, “with the help of his twin brother, beat and shot a man in a Detroit coney island restaurant.”
“Presumably, then, we would now decide the procedure a trial court must apply when resolving a motion to withdraw a plea that is allegedly involuntary solely because it was part of a joint plea deal offered to a relative,” Zahra wrote. “But the majority opinion improvidently and without explanation ignores the scope of this appeal, the parties’ arguments, and the content of this court’s prior orders to hold that any defendant who pleads guilty as part of a joint plea offer may seek to withdraw the guilty plea based merely on the allegation that he or she was coerced by a promise of leniency to a third party. To be clear, no party briefed whether all joint pleas are de jure suspect because one of the defendants might have been coerced by an offer of leniency to a third party.”
Zahra added that the majority opinion “does not explain why it has fashioned its ruling wider than the scope of defendant’s appeal and briefing.”
“Specifically, the majority opinion directs lower courts to apply a test created in In re Ibarra whenever a defendant who pleaded guilty subject to a joint plea deal alleges that he or she was coerced by an offer of leniency to a codefendant,” he wrote. “The majority opinion claims that Ibarra’s application has been ‘adopted by other state courts,” and in support of this claim, the majority opinion cites opinions from four different state courts. But Ibarra is procedurally distinct from this case; therefore, it is inapposite. Likewise, none of the other state court opinions cited by the majority applied Ibarra’s test to motions to withdraw a guilty plea. This Court may be the first in the nation to apply Ibarra to a motion to withdraw a guilty plea.”
Zahra wrote that the distinction, here, was significant.
“In this case, the majority opinion provides defendants who enter a package plea deal contingent on other charged defendants also pleading guilty a period to revoke the plea by claiming involuntariness. This newly imposed requirement doubles the trial courts’ work, holding that in addition to MCR 6.302’s requirements at the plea-taking stage a trial court must also ‘apply the non-exhaustive Ibarra factors in conducting a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis to determine whether defendant voluntarily entered a guilty plea.’ Accordingly, a trial court may now have to conduct the same analysis twice before a joint
plea made to multiple defendants is final.”
The dissenting justice added: “Most importantly, however, is that the majority opinion is bad for the people of Michigan who expect our courts to run efficiently and equitably for all involved in our criminal justice system: defendants, victims, jurors, law enforcement, and witnesses.
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