Lee v. State, 30A05-9502-CR-70
| Decision Date | 27 June 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 30A05-9502-CR-70,30A05-9502-CR-70 |
| Parties | Gerald E. LEE, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
This court accepted Gerald E. Lee's interlocutory appeal in order to determine whether, by accepting Lee's guilty plea, the trial court lost the authority to reject the plea agreement entered into between Lee and the State of Indiana.
The State charged Lee with robbery, a Class B felony, for his participation in the armed robbery of the National City Bank in Mount Comfort, Indiana. The Hancock County Prosecutor and Lee, through his defense counsel and guardian ad litem, negotiated a plea agreement providing that Lee would plead guilty to robbery, a Class C felony, in exchange for an eight-year sentence, four years suspended, and his truthful testimony against his co-defendants. The agreement also provided that Lee would give a deposition immediately following the court's acceptance of the plea agreement.
In accepting Lee's plea of guilty the trial court stated:
R. 66-67. In accepting Lee's plea, the trial court did not inform Lee that it was not a party to the plea agreement or that in accepting the guilty plea, the court was not accepting the plea agreement. The record reflects that between the guilty plea hearing and the sentencing date, the court informed the parties that it intended to reject the plea agreement. In a memorandum to the trial court, defense counsel asserted that the trial court lacked that authority. At sentencing, the court rejected the plea agreement and set the matter for trial. This discretionary interlocutory appeal ensued.
In Reffett v. State (1991), Ind., 571 N.E.2d 1227, the trial court stated that it "accepts a plea of guilty and accepts the plea agreement and finds the defendant guilty...." Id. at 1230. The trial court later rejected the plea agreement. In holding that the trial court was required to sentence Reffett in accordance with the terms of the rejected plea agreement, our supreme court noted that "once a plea is accepted, a court is bound by all the terms in the plea agreement which are within its legal power to control." Id.
Relying on Reffett, this court held in Steele v. State (1994), Ind.App., 638 N.E.2d 1338, that a trial court could not accept a guilty plea without accepting the plea agreement and its terms. Id. at 1339. Unlike in Reffett, the trial court in Steele did not explicitly accept the plea agreement when it accepted the guilty plea. The trial court merely stated that it accepted the plea of guilty. Steele rejected the State's argument that the trial court's failure to verbalize acceptance of...
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