Bridgers v. Com.

• Decision Date: 30 November 1970
• Citation: 177 S.E.2d 526,211 Va. 370
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Bernard BRIDGERS, Jr. v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

Page 526

177 S.E.2d 526

211 Va. 370

Bernard BRIDGERS, Jr. v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Nov. 30, 1970.

Gay E. Milius, Jr., Virginia Beach, for plaintiff in error.

William P. Robinson, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (Andrew P. Miller, Atty. Gen., on brief), for defendant in error.

Before SNEAD, C.J., and I'ANSON, CARRICO, GORDON, HARRISON, COCHRAN and HARMAN, JJ.

SNEAD, Chief Justice.

On November 28, 1966, Bernard Bridgers, Jr., age 17, was indicted by a grand jury of the Circuit Court of the City of Virginia Beach for the unlawful and felonious wounding of David Robertson. The crime charged in the indictment occurred on July 26, 1966 when Robertson was stabbed in the back and arm. He positively identified Bridgers as the one who stabbed him in the arm. At the trial on February 21, 1967 Bridgers, who was represented by court-appointed counsel, pleaded guilty to the offense charged in the indictment, and the court after hearing evidence sentenced Bridgers to a term of five years in the State Penitentiary. There is no showing in the record that the trial court inquired whether the guilty plea was voluntarily and intelligently made.

As a result of a habeas corpus proceeding this court granted Bridgers leave to apply for a delayed appeal. On September 5, 1969 we awarded him a writ of error to the judgment of conviction.

Bridgers contends that his constitutional rights were violated because his plea of guilty was accepted by the trial court without a showing in the record that the plea was voluntary and intelligent.

In support of his contention Bridgers relies on Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969). In that case the Supreme Court held it was reversible error for a trial judge to accept a plea of guilty without an affirmative showing on the record that the plea was voluntarily and intelligently entered. As indicated above, the record before us is silent as to whether Bridgers' plea of guilty was voluntary and intelligent. If Boykin applies to this case, Bridgers' contention is correct. However, Bridgers' plea of guilty was made prior to June 2, 1969, the date Boykin was decided. Thus, the decisive question is whether Boykin should be given retroactive application.

The Supreme Court has established three criteria for determining whether a new constitutional ruling should be applied retroactively. These criteria are: the purpose of the new rule, the extent of reliance on the old rule, and the effect on the administration of justice the new rule would have. Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. 244, 89 S.Ct. 1030, 22 L.Ed.2d 248 (1969), Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967).

Based on these criteria we hold that Boykin should not be applied retroactively. Boykin did not enunciate the constitutional requirement that guilty pleas be voluntary and intelligent. This requirement was already well recognized. Boykin merely established a new rule that the record show on its face that the guilty plea was voluntarily and intelligently made. A substantial number of valid guilty pleas have been accepted in the past without an adequate showing on the record that they were voluntary. The majority of convictions are based upon guilty pleas, and it would severely disrupt the administration of justice if the Commonwealth had to retry otherwise valid 'guilty plea' convictions simply because the record is silent as to the voluntariness of the plea. Therefore, Boykin v. Alabama, Supra, is controlling only if a defendant's plea of guilty was accepted after June 2, 1969. Since Bridgers' guilty plea was accepted before that date, the holding in Boykin is not applicable to his plea.

Boykin was preceded by McCarthy v....