James v. State, No. A03-489.

• Decision Date: 07 July 2005
• Docket Number: No. A03-489.
• Citation: 699 N.W.2d 723
• Parties: Brian JAMES, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

699 N.W.2d 723

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

No. A03-489.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 7, 2005.

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, Gaylord Saetre, Todd County Attorney, Long Prairie, MN, for Respondent.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

PAGE, Justice.

This case arises from a postconviction court's denial of Brian James's postconviction petition to withdraw his guilty plea. James contends that because he was not informed of a statutorily mandated conditional release term before the conditional release term was actually imposed he is entitled to have either his plea withdrawn or his sentenced modified. The postconviction court denied James's petition. On appeal, the court of appeals declined to reach the merits of James's claims, held that James's petition was not timely under Minn. R.Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1, and affirmed the postconviction court's denial of James's petition.

In June 1997, James was charged with one count of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.344, subd. 1(d) (2004), and one count of burglary in the first degree in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.582, subd. 1(c) (2004). James negotiated a plea agreement with the state whereby he agreed to plead guilty to an amended charge of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.345, subd. 1(d). In exchange for James's guilty plea, the burglary charge was dismissed and the state promised to recommend that James be sentenced to 36 months in prison with execution of the sentence stayed and no more than 10 years of supervised release. At the time of James's offense, Minn.Stat. § 609.346, subd. 5(a) (1996), required that any sentence imposed on a defendant convicted of a criminal sexual conduct offense who had a previous criminal sexual conduct conviction include a mandatory 10-year conditional release term. It appears from the record that James, who had a previous criminal sexual conduct conviction, was not made aware of the conditional release term during the plea negotiations.

On October 27, 1997, the district court held a plea hearing and accepted the plea agreement. James was sentenced in accordance with the terms of the plea agreement on July 8, 1998. In addition, the court required James to serve 242 days in jail. The court failed, however, to inform James at either the plea hearing or the sentencing hearing about the 10-year conditional release term, nor did the court impose the conditional release term at the time of sentencing.

In October 1999, the district court revoked James's probation and executed his 36-month prison sentence. At the probation revocation hearing, the court, for the first time, informed James that he would be subject to a mandatory conditional release term. Specifically, the court said that, upon the completion of his sentence, James would "be placed on conditional release for an additional period of 10 years." James did not object to or otherwise challenge imposition of the conditional release term at that time.¹ Although the exact date is not clear from the record, James completed his sentence and was released from prison and placed on concurrent supervised release and conditional release sometime in the spring of 2001.² After his supervised release period ended, James remained on conditional release. On June 24, 2002, James's conditional release was revoked and he was reincarcerated.

Eight months after James returned to prison, 22 months after the district court amended the Criminal Judgment and Warrant of Commitment, and 39 months after the court imposed the conditional release term, he filed a petition for postconviction relief challenging, for the first time, the imposition of the 10-year conditional release term. In the petition, James argued that under State v. Garcia, 582 N.W.2d 879 (Minn.1998), and State v. Jumping Eagle, 620 N.W.2d 42 (Minn.2000), he had an absolute right to either have his sentence modified or be allowed to withdraw his plea because the conditional release term was not included in his original plea agreement. The postconviction court denied James's petition. In so doing, the postconviction court found that there was no requirement that James be notified of the 10-year conditional release term before his probation was revoked, that James was notified of the conditional release term at his probation revocation hearing, and that James was not entitled to postconviction relief because his guilty plea was motivated by a desire to avoid incarceration.

Although the court of appeals affirmed the postconviction court, it did so on grounds not considered by the postconviction court. James v. State, 674 N.W.2d 216 (Minn.App.2004). The court of appeals concluded that under Minn. R.Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1, James's petition for postconviction relief was untimely, and without reaching the merits of James's petition, held that James was not entitled to postconviction relief. Id. at 220. In this appeal, James raises two issues: (1) whether his petition for postconviction relief was untimely, thus barring relief; and (2) if the petition was timely, whether he is entitled to the relief sought. Because we conclude that James's petition was timely and that he is entitled to relief under our decisions in Garcia and Jumping Eagle, we reverse the court of appeals and remand to the postconviction court for further proceedings.

I.

In this appeal, James challenges the court of appeals' denial of his petition for postconviction relief. The state contends that James is not entitled to postconviction relief because he delayed 39 months before challenging the district court's imposition of the 10-year conditional release term. The court of appeals held in favor of the state. James v. State, 674 N.W.2d at 220. The court reasoned that under Minn. R.Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1, "James's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, filed more than * * * three years after the imposition of the conditional-release term, was not timely." James, 674 N.W.2d at 219.

When a criminal defendant seeks to withdraw a guilty plea under Rule 15.05, after the defendant has been sentenced, the motion to withdraw the plea must be raised in a petition for postconviction relief. See Minn.Stat. § 590.01 (2004). When determining whether to grant a petition for postconviction relief, we have consistently held that:

[D]elay is one relevant factor against granting relief, and in extreme cases may justify denial of relief. Rairdon v. State, 557 N.W.2d [318,] 322 [(Minn.1996)] (citing Gaulke v. State, 296 Minn. 487, 487, 206 N.W.2d 652, 652 (1973) (relief denied based on 25-year delay)). But we have a commitment to convicted defendants' rights to at least one substantive review. Rairdon, 557 N.W.2d at 322 (9-year delay did not preclude review on the merits); Hoagland v. State, 518 N.W.2d 531, 536 (Minn.1994) (8-year delay alone did not preclude relief because the burden is on the state to establish undue prejudice by delay); Riggers v. State, 284 Minn. 543, 543-44, 169 N.W.2d 58, 59 (1969) (33-year delay did not preclude relief).

Butala v. State, 664 N.W.2d 333, 338 (Minn.2003); see also Fox v. State, 474 N.W.2d 821, 826 (Minn.1991)

(appellant's four-year delay in seeking relief is a relevant consideration in determining whether that relief should be granted); McMaster v. State, 551 N.W.2d 218, 218-19 (Minn.1996) (appellant's 15-year delay in filing a petition for postconviction relief was "deliberate and inexcusable" and constituted abuse of judicial process because defendant purposefully delayed to avoid extradition for crimes committed in a foreign jurisdiction); Chapman v. State, 282 Minn. 13, 20-21, 162 N.W.2d 698, 703 (1968) ("We have refused to order vacation of a plea of guilty when manifest injustice has not been demonstrated. We have held that delay in seeking relief is a relevant consideration."). As evidenced by this line of cases, our treatment of postconviction petitions with respect to the issue of delay does not depend on whether the petitioner seeks to withdraw a guilty plea under Rule 15.05 or otherwise claims that the conviction obtained or the sentence imposed violates the criminal defendant's rights.

The court of appeals noted that embedded within Rule 15.05, subdivision 1, is a specific timeliness requirement for plea withdrawal motions. The rule provides that:

The court shall allow a defendant to withdraw a plea of guilty upon a timely motion and proof to the satisfaction of the court that withdrawal is necessary to correct a manifest injustice. Such a motion is not barred solely because it is made after sentence. If a defendant is allowed to withdraw a plea after sentence, the court shall set aside the judgment and the plea.

Minn. R.Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1. Although the rule requires that the motion be timely made, the language of the rule does not provide guidance on how courts are to determine the timeliness of such a motion. However, when a plea withdrawal request is raised after sentencing in a petition for postconviction relief, we conclude that there is no reason to treat timeliness under Rule 15.05 differently from the manner in which delays in filing petitions for postconviction relief are treated.

Accordingly, the timeliness of a petition to withdraw a guilty plea is a relevant consideration in determining whether that relief should be granted. See Butala, 664 N.W.2d at 338

. Furthermore, a delay that is deliberate and inexcusable constituting an abuse of the judicial process, as in McMaster, is sufficient grounds to justify denial of relief solely on the basis that the petition is untimely. See McMaster, 551 N.W.2d at 218-19. The petition for postconviction relief at issue in this case was filed 39 months...