Mathis v. State
| Decision Date | 18 July 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 1279S353,1279S353 |
| Citation | 406 N.E.2d 1182,273 Ind. 609 |
| Parties | Donald MATHIS, Appellant (Petitioner below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Respondent below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Harriette Bailey Conn, Public Defender, James M. Garrettson, Sp. Asst. Public Defender, Indianapolis, for appellant.
Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Jeff G. Finn, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
The petitioner is before this Court appealing from the denial of his petition for relief under Post-Conviction Relief, Rule 1. He had previously entered a guilty plea to commission of a felony while armed, to wit: robbery, and sodomy, and was sentenced to terms of eleven years and two to fourteen years, respectively. His petition now raises the following issues:
1. Whether the trial court erred in finding that petitioner had waived his right to assert the issue of the alleged failure of the trial court to advise him of his right to confront adverse witnesses before accepting his guilty plea; and
2. Whether the guilty plea was knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily entered.
The facts from the record show that petitioner was originally charged with kidnapping, sodomy and robbery and that he entered a plea of not guilty to those charges. The charges arose from an incident which involved the petitioner's picking up a seventeen year-old boy who was walking beside the road with his 10-speed bicycle which had a flat tire. Petitioner induced the boy to get into his car with offers to take him to get help. Then petitioner drove the boy around at random for a while, hit him with his fist to force him to commit sodomy, and finally let him out of the car with nothing on except his tennis shoes. Petitioner kept the bicycle, the boy's clothes and other belongings in his car.
Petitioner filed several pretrial motions, including a motion for speedy trial and discovery motions. About two months later, the state filed an amended information charging petitioner with commission of a felony while armed and sodomy. Petitioner agreed to plead guilty to these charges in exchange for the dropping of the kidnapping charge. He also agreed to the sentences recommended by the state.
At the guilty plea hearing, the court read the terms of the agreement to the petitioner and determined that he was voluntarily accepting those terms without any promises or threats being made to him. The court then established the factual basis of the crimes, advised the petitioner of his constitutional rights, and determined that petitioner was satisfied with his attorney before he accepted the guilty plea and sentenced petitioner accordingly.
At the post-conviction relief hearing, the petitioner claimed that his guilty plea was not voluntary because he had not been specifically advised of his rights to a speedy trial and to confront adverse witnesses. He also argued that the court did not have jurisdiction to impose two sentences. The trial court denied the petition and found that petitioner himself had waived the issue of whether or not he had been advised of his right to confront adverse witnesses since he had not raised this specific issue in his pro se petition. The court further found that while it was true that there was no mention of a right to a "speedy" trial during the guilty plea hearing, there had been advisement of the right to a public trial and the petitioner, himself, had filed a pretrial motion for a speedy trial and had later withdrawn it. The court found that under these circumstances, the petitioner must be held to have been informed of his right to a speedy trial. The court finally found that there was no error in sentencing since there were two separate crimes involved and petitioner based all his arguments concerning sentencing upon cases involving lesser included offenses.
Petitioner first argues that the trial court erred in finding that he had waived the issue of the alleged failure of the trial court to advise him of his right to confront adverse witnesses. We will not deal further with the issue of waiver, since it is necessary for us to review the entire procedure surrounding the guilty plea hearing in order to consider petitioner's second allegation of error involving the voluntariness of his guilty plea.
Petitioner contends that his guilty plea was not voluntarily given because the trial court did not adequately advise him of two of his constitutional rights, the right to a speedy trial and the right to confront adverse witnesses. It is true that these are two of the specific constitutional rights of which a defendant must be informed before a trial court can accept his guilty plea. Ind.Code § 35-4.1-1-3 (Burns 1979 Repl.), Boykin v. Alabama, (1969) 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274.
However, this Court has consistently held that the "essence of Boykin is that the record must affirmatively show that a defendant entering a guilty plea does so voluntarily and intelligently." Laird v. State, (1979) Ind., 385 N.E.2d 452, 454; Neeley v. State, (1978) Ind., 382 N.E.2d 714; Williams v. State, (1975) 263 Ind. 165, 174, 325 N.E.2d 827, 832. This means that the record must provide a sufficient basis for the conclusion that defendant was meaningfully informed...
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Davis v. State
...the entire record that the petitioner was advised of and understood the substance of that right. The same was said in Mathis v. State, (1980) Ind., 406 N.E.2d 1182, concerning the failure of the trial court to specifically advise of the right to a speedy trial and the right to confrontation......
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Sides v. State
...against compulsory self-incrimination, the right to trial by jury and the right to confront one's accusers. See e.g., Mathis v. State (1980) 273 Ind. 609, 406 N.E.2d 1182; Maleck v. State (1976) 265 Ind. 604, 358 N.E.2d In Turman v. State (1979) 271 Ind. 332, 392 N.E.2d 483, our Supreme Cou......
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James v. State
...HUNTER, J., concurs. 1 We note that the variance in the standard of review set out in these cases had been resolved in Mathis v. State, (1980) Ind., 406 N.E.2d 1182, 1184.2 The record at bar differs significantly from Collins, where the court also found noncompliance with Ind.Code § ...
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Dolan v. State
...was not followed, we are convinced from the record as a whole, Dolan made a knowing, intelligent and voluntary plea. Mathis v. State (1980), Ind., 406 N.E.2d 1182; Neeley v. State (1978), 269 Ind. 588, 382 N.E.2d 714; White v. State (1980), Ind.App., 412 N.E.2d 1269. The following statement......