James v. State

• Decision Date: 03 February 2004
• Docket Number: No. A03-489.,A03-489.
• Citation: James v. State, 674 N.W.2d 216 (Minn. App. 2004)
• Parties: Brian JAMES, petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

674 N.W.2d 216

Brian JAMES, petitioner, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. A03-489.

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

February 3, 2004.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Cathryn Middlebrook, Assistant State Public Defender, Minneapolis, MN, for appellant.

Mike Hatch, Attorney General, James B. Early, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul, MN; and Gaylord Saetre, Todd County Attorney, Long Prairie, MN, for respondent.

Considered and decided by WILLIS, Presiding Judge, KLAPHAKE, Judge, and ANDERSON, Judge.

OPINION

G. BARRY ANDERSON, Judge.

Appellant pleaded guilty to, and was sentenced for, one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. The district court stayed appellant's sentence and put him on probation for ten years. After appellant violated his probation, the district court executed his sentence, including the imposition of a ten-year conditional-release term. Several years later, appellant filed a postconviction petition challenging the imposition of the conditional-release term; appellant argued that either he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea or the district court should modify his sentence to comport with the upper limits of his plea agreement. The district court denied appellant's motion, and he now appeals. We affirm.

FACTS

Appellant Brian Keith James and A.B.C. were acquaintances. James entered A.B.C.'s apartment while she slept and attempted to have anal intercourse with A.B.C. A.B.C. awoke during the attempt and struggled with James. A.B.C. recognized James, and, after James left, she called the police. The police arrested James, and the state charged James with third-degree criminal sexual conduct and first-degree burglary pursuant to Minn. Stat. §§ 609.344, subd. 1(d); .582, subd. 1(c) (1996).

James pleaded guilty to one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, which carried a penalty of up to ten years of incarceration, in exchange for a promise of a 36-month stayed sentence. See Minn. Stat. § 609.345, subd. 2 (1996). According to statute, offenders with a prior conviction were required to be incarcerated for a minimum term of three years unless the district court found the offender amenable to a long-term, in-patient sex-offender treatment program, and the offender was accepted into such a program. Minn.Stat. § 609.346, subd. 2 (1996). At the plea hearing, the district court and counsel discussed both whether the mandatory minimum executed term would be waived in James's case and whether James would be allowed to withdraw his plea if he was not accepted into a long-term in-patient program pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 609.346, subd. 2. The final disposition and terms of James's plea agreement were postponed until the presentence investigation could be completed. At the sentencing hearing, the court sentenced James to 36 months in prison, but stayed the execution of that sentence and placed James on probation for ten years.

Because James violated his probation, the district court revoked his probation. At the revocation hearing, James admitted that he was aware that his probationary status was contingent on the completion of listed conditions. The district court executed James's sentence, ordering James to serve 36 months in prison and imposing a ten-year conditional-release term at the end of his incarceration, as required by the sex-offender statute.

James sought postconviction relief from the ten-year conditional-release term, requesting the withdrawal of his guilty plea or a modification of his sentence. But James waited more than three years to seek relief after the district court imposed the conditional-release term to his sentence. This was more than five years after the date that James pleaded guilty and more than six years after the date of the offense. The district court denied his petition, and James now appeals that decision.

ISSUE

Did the postconviction court abuse its discretion by denying the motion of James to either withdraw his guilty plea or to modify his sentence?

ANALYSIS

We review the decision of a postconviction court under an abuse-of-discretion standard. Scales v. State, 620 N.W.2d 706, 707 (Minn.2001). A postconviction court's factual findings will be sustained if they are supported by sufficient evidence. State v. Christopherson, 644 N.W.2d 507, 510 (Minn.App.2002), review denied (Minn. July 16, 2002). A postconviction relief petition collaterally attacks the district court's decision—a decision that "carries a presumption of regularity and which, therefore, cannot be lightly set aside." Pederson v. State, 649 N.W.2d 161, 163 (Minn.2002).

Once a criminal defendant enters a guilty plea there is no absolute right to withdraw that plea. Perkins v. State, 559 N.W.2d 678, 685 (Minn.1997). The defendant bears the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the facts warrant withdrawal of the guilty plea. Lundin v. State, 430 N.W.2d 675, 679 (Minn.App.1988), review denied (Minn. Dec. 21, 1988).

The defendant is allowed to withdraw a plea of guilty after sentencing only upon a timely motion and proof that the withdrawal is necessary to correct a manifest injustice. Minn. R.Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1. The language of the rule, on its face, explicitly directs that in order for a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea, the motion to withdraw the plea must first be timely made, and second, there must be proof that a manifest injustice would result if the plea were not withdrawn. See id.

The first prong of Minn. R.Crim. P. 15.05 mandates that a defendant's motion to withdraw a plea of guilty must be timely. A motion "is timely if made with due diligence, considering the nature of the allegations therein." Chapman v. State, 282 Minn. 13, 17, 162 N.W.2d 698, 701 (1968) (quoting A.B.A. Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Pleas of Guilty (tentative draft), § 2.1). Because case law does not provide an explicit time limit for bringing plea-withdrawal motions, we must analyze the evidence in support of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea to determine if the motion is timely. See Jones v. State, 288 Minn. 527, 179 N.W.2d 315, 316-17 (1970).

At this point, we distinguish the timeliness issue here from other timeliness issues inherent in appeals from the imposition of a conditional-release term to a defendant's sentence. Here, we discuss James's motion to withdraw his plea of guilty, which relates to his conditional right to withdraw the plea, not to his choice of remedy if we found that he had properly exercised that right. If his motion is timely, this court is required to analyze the potential remedy to correct the imposition of a conditional-release term that would make James's final sentence exceed the upper limits of his plea agreement. See e.g., State v. Wukawitz, 662 N.W.2d 517, 520 (Minn.2003) (determining that where the imposition of the conditional-release term violated appellant's plea agreement, the district court may allow the defendant to withdraw his plea; if the plea withdrawal would unduly prejudice the state, the district court may modify the defendant's sentence); State v. Jumping Eagle, 620 N.W.2d 42, 45 (Minn.2000) (remanding to the district court with the instruction that the state may argue whether the court should allow withdrawal of the guilty plea or modification of the sentence). Neither Wukawitz nor Jumping Eagle discusses the timeliness of a motion to challenge the addition of a conditional-release term to the appellant's sentence. The implicit holdings in both these cases are, therefore, that the appellants timely challenged the addition of a conditional-release term to their sentences.

Here, we hold that James's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, filed more than five years after the district court had accepted that plea and more than three years after the imposition of the conditional-release term, was not timely. See Fox v. State, 474 N.W.2d 821, 826 (Minn.1991) (holding that a four-year delay weighs against granting the motion to withdraw a guilty plea). First, Minn. R.Crim. P. 15.05 requires that defendant's motion to withdraw a plea of guilty be timely filed.¹ Second, public-policy considerations support the conclusion that a motion to withdraw a plea of guilty, made more than three years after the action complained of, is untimely. There is more than one public-policy consideration underlying the requirement that a motion must be timely. The prejudice to the prosecution in retrying the case is surely one of the considerations. See Bolinger v. State, 647 N.W.2d 16, 22 (Minn.App.2002) (stating that even if petition for postconviction relief was untimely, the court would consider whether withdrawal of the plea would cause prejudice to the prosecution "as a result of defendant's untimely request to stand trial") (quoting State v. Lopez, 379 N.W.2d 633, 637 (Minn.App.1986),review denied (Minn. Feb. 14, 1986)) (describing three factors district courts should consider in cases where deportation consequences attach after guilty plea: (1) the strength of defendant's reason for requesting withdrawal of the plea, (2) the existence of prejudice to the prosecution, and (3) whether defendant's misunderstanding of the collateral consequences that attached to the guilty plea was a reflection of the defendant's own ignorance or misleading statements by the government); see also Smith v. State, 596 N.W.2d 661, 664-665 (Minn.App. 1999) (stating that delay in seeking postconviction relief weighs against allowing withdrawal of a guilty plea), review denied (Minn. Aug. 27, 1999).

But prejudice to the prosecution is not the only public-policy consideration. An expectation of finality is another policy consideration at stake. Generally, an expectation of finality is discussed as it relates to the criminal defendant. See State v. Calmes, 632 N.W.2d 641, 645 (Minn. 2001) (recognizing that due process limits a court's ability to change a sentence after "the defendant...