Knox v. State, 92-152
| Decision Date | 19 March 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 92-152,92-152 |
| Citation | 848 P.2d 1354 |
| Parties | Ray KNOX, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Richard C. Slater of Bayless & Slater, Cheyenne, for appellant.
Joseph B. Meyer, Atty. Gen., Sylvia L. Hackl, Deputy Atty. Gen., Mary B. Guthrie, and Barbara L. Boyer, Sr. Asst. Attys. Gen., Cheyenne, for appellee.
Before MACY, C.J., and THOMAS, CARDINE, GOLDEN and TAYLOR, JJ.
Appellant Ray Knox appeals his conviction of aiding and abetting and attempted manslaughter. Judgment and sentence We affirm.
were entered by the district court after it accepted appellant's guilty plea. Appellant asserts that the state violated the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (IAD), 1 but first we address the scope and effect of appellant's guilty plea.
In his initial brief appellant raises two issues:
ISSUE I:
The trial judge erred and abused his discretion when he failed to rule for over three months on Appellant's Motion to Disqualify Judge.
ISSUE II:
The trial court erred when it failed to grant Appellant's Motion to Dismiss pursuant to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, W.S. 7-15-101, et seq. (1987).
Appellee State of Wyoming presented a single issue:
Whether Mr. Knox waived his arguments when he plead guilty.
In a reply brief, appellant framed the issue differently:
Did Appellant Ray Knox knowingly and voluntarily waive his right to raise issues pertaining to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers?
The events which form the roots of appellant's conviction are very familiar to this court. Twice we have heard appeals arising out of these same operative facts. In the interest of brevity, we refer the reader to Jones v. State, 777 P.2d 54, 56-57 (Wyo.1989) (Jones I ) which fully describes the circumstances giving rise to appellant's conviction. 2 In this appeal we are more concerned with the procedural history which occurred after the initial criminal conviction.
In 1988, appellant and a codefendant (Jones) were convicted in district court of conspiracy to commit murder. On appeal to this court, both appellant's and his codefendant's convictions were overturned and remanded for new trials. Jones I, 777 P.2d at 61. At the time, appellant was in federal prison serving time on a federal conviction arising out of the same criminal acts. Pursuant to the IAD, appellant was returned to Wyoming on December 1, 1989, for a second trial. On remand, appellant's and codefendant's trials were severed and codefendant's trial was held first.
In codefendant's second trial, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Immediately after codefendant's second conviction, appellant entered into a plea agreement with the county attorney, whereby appellant plead guilty to the lesser charges of aiding and abetting and attempted manslaughter. Appellant's sentencing was postponed until after certain conditions of the agreement occurred. The other terms and conditions of appellant's plea agreement are ambiguously recorded in the transcript from the change-of-plea hearing.
On June 13, 1991, this court reversed codefendant's conviction obtained through his second trial and remanded for still another trial. Jones v. State, 813 P.2d 629 (Wyo.1991) (Jones II ). The basis for reversal in Jones II was peculiar to codefendant's second trial and did not involve an issue shared with appellant. 3
In April of 1992, almost a year after reversal in Jones II, appellant filed a motion to dismiss, claiming error in failing to provide speedy sentencing. Two months later, in June of 1992, the district court denied appellant's motion to dismiss because appellant had waived any objections to speedy sentencing at his plea agreement hearing. Soon thereafter, on June 29 Because the plea agreement is at the core of this appeal, its terms will be discussed in greater detail as we address the issues.
1992, appellant was sentenced according to the May 11, 1990, plea agreement.
Before we can address appellant's claim of error under the speedy trial provisions of the IAD, we must first determine whether appellant is now foreclosed from raising the issue on appeal. Generally speaking, once a guilty plea has been properly entered the defenses or objections which a defendant can raise are severely limited. Davila v. State, 831 P.2d 204, 205-06 (Wyo.1992).
Appellant interprets the plea agreement as preserving his right to pursue the issue of state compliance with the IAD. In opposition, the state asserts that appellant waived any right to raise an IAD issue once the conditions of the plea agreement were fulfilled. Because the plea agreement was not reduced to a more specific written document, it is necessary to quote from the change-of-plea hearing for a complete understanding of the terms of appellant's guilty plea.
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: The county attorney's office has offered, and [Appellant] and I have accepted, that [Appellant] will today enter a plea of guilty to aiding and abetting and attempt to commit manslaughter. * * * That [Appellant] will then be returned to the custody of federal authorities * * * and that the appeal of [Codefendant] will proceed on whatever issues [Codefendant] has [sic] including, as we understand it, the interstate agreement on detainer act [IAD] issue; and in the event that [Codefendant's] appeal--conviction is overturned on the IAD issue, that the state will then dismiss the charges against [Appellant].
[Appellant], through me, will be permitted to petition along with [Codefendant] on a writ of cert on the IAD issue. [Appellant] and I will waive under the IAD the return to jurisdiction dismissal issue. * * * We'll waive speedy trial issues from and after May 11 this year [1990], and my understanding is also if [codefendant's conviction] is overturned for some reason other than the IAD and [Codefendant] is returned for trial, [Appellant] will still be sentenced on the eight to twelve, consecutive to the present federal sentence * * *.
(emphasis added). The district court then proceeded to inform the defendant of the effect of a guilty plea, to insure that the plea was voluntary, and to question appellant concerning the events to assure that a factual basis existed for the guilty plea.
The precise terms of the plea agreement are not easily discernable from the transcript of the change-of-plea hearing. Appellant claims that he preserved certain objections for this appeal. He bases this assertion on the following statements: (1) "[Appellant] will waive all constitutional rights to a speedy trial from and after May 11, 1990"; and (2) "And all IAD, * * *, from and after today May 11, 1990, but preserves any right which may have accrued prior to that time." (emphasis added). This language appears to support appellant's view that all the parties involved understood the plea agreement to specifically preserve appellant's right to challenge any speedy trial or IAD issue which arose prior to the May 11, 1990 hearing.
After careful review of this plea hearing transcript, we discern the following terms and conditions. First, appellant agreed to plead guilty to aiding and abetting and attempted manslaughter in exchange for the county attorney's promise to drop the conspiracy to commit murder charges. Second, the county attorney agreed to permit appellant to petition the Wyoming Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari on his own behalf. Third, the county attorney agreed that if codefendant's second conviction was reversed by the Wyoming Supreme Court based on IAD violations then, and only then, would the county attorney dismiss all charges against appellant. Fourth, appellant was permitted to preserve for this appeal any speedy trial or IAD issue which arose before May 11, 1990. Last, the county attorney agreed that appellant's guilty plea would not be entered, as of record, until after codefendant's appeal was completed.
On May 11, 1990, when appellant's change-of-plea hearing occurred, the Wyoming Rules of Criminal Procedure had no provision permitting entry of a conditional plea of guilty. 4 On this point, this court has stated:
A few jurisdictions have provided for a contrary result by enacting statutes which permit the defendant to enter a guilty plea conditioned upon reservation of the right to appeal specified issues. Wyoming is not among them. Instead, we have maintained the position that the defendant who pleads guilty admits the elements of the crime charged and waives the right to appeal all but a few defenses and objections.
Sword v. State, 746 P.2d 423, 425 (Wyo.1987) (citations omitted).
The terms of the agreement, as portrayed in the transcript from the change-of-plea hearing, demonstrate an attempt to permit appellant to preserve certain defenses or objections for appeal. That amounts to a conditional...
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Noel v. State
...6Stout v. State, 2001 WY 114, ¶ 3, 35 P.3d 1198, 1200 (Wyo.2001); Bilderback v. State, 13 P.3d 249, 251–52 (Wyo.2000); Knox v. State, 848 P.2d 1354, 1356 (Wyo.1993); Sanchez v. State, 841 P.2d 85, 89 (Wyo.1992); Warren v. State, 809 P.2d 788 (Wyo.1991) (recognizing the crime of attempted vo......
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Noel v. State
...Stout v. State, 2001 WY 114, ¶ 3, 35 P.3d 1198, 1200 (Wyo. 2001); Bilderback v. State, 13 P.3d 249, 251-52 (Wyo. 2000); Knox v. State, 848 P.2d 1354, 1356 (Wyo. 1993); Sanchez v. State, 841 P.2d 85, 89 (Wyo. 1992); Warren v. State, 809 P.2d 788 (Wyo. 1991) (recognizing the crime of attempte......
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Knox v. Wyoming Dept. of Corrections State Penitentiary Warden, 94-8023
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