Medel v. State
| Decision Date | 25 April 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 20060160.,20060160. |
| Citation | 2008 UT 32,184 P.3d 1226 |
| Parties | Frank MEDEL, Jr., Petitioner and Appellant, v. STATE of Utah, Respondent and Appellee. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
INTRODUCTION
¶ 1 Frank Medel, Jr., appeals the dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief. Medel, who pled guilty to four felonies, alleges that the prosecution failed to disclose more than one hundred documents that were responsive to his discovery requests. Medel argues that he is entitled to post-conviction relief because the prosecution's failure to disclose these documents prior to the entry of his guilty pleas violated his right to due process under Brady v. Maryland.1 Alternatively, Medel argues that the previously undisclosed documents constitute "newly discovered evidence," independently entitling him to relief. The district court dismissed Medel's petition on procedural grounds as an improper "successive petition," a conclusion that Medel now challenges.
¶ 2 We affirm the district court's dismissal of Medel's petition on alternative grounds. Specifically, we conclude that Medel's petition fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. First, Medel has not shown that his "conviction was obtained or [his] sentence imposed in violation of the United States Constitution or Utah Constitution."2 Because the entry of a guilty plea constitutes a waiver of any pre-plea constitutional violations, a petitioner may collaterally attack a conviction arising from a guilty plea only by showing that his plea was entered involuntarily or unknowingly.3 In this case, however, there is nothing contained in the undisclosed evidence that would render Medel's pleas either involuntary or unknowing. Second, Medel's pleadings do not satisfy the requirements for relief under the newly discovered evidence exception of the Post-Conviction Remedies Act ("PCRA").4 We accordingly affirm the district court's dismissal of Medel's petition for post-conviction relief.
¶ 3 In February 1987, Medel was arrested and charged with sixteen first degree felonies in three separate cases. The three cases involved sexual assaults on three victims: Cheryl Wall, Shelly Meredith, and Michelle Bridges. Shortly after Medel's arrest, his counsel served three motions for discovery on the prosecution. The motions for discovery requested all evidence available under then-existing law. Among other things, Medel requested: (1) statements of the defendant; (2) the criminal record of the defendant; (3) physical evidence seized from the defendant and any reports or analysis thereof; (4) evidence known to the State tending to negate or mitigate the defendant's guilt; (5) police or investigative reports; (6) a list of witnesses the State intended to call; (7) recordings or reports of statements made by witnesses; (8) reports regarding scientific or psychological examinations, including polygraph reports; and (9) photographs, fingerprints, or other evidence taken by the State, including reports analyzing the evidence.
¶ 4 The prosecution voluntarily responded to each request, but produced only the police reports from the three criminal cases and a copy of a lineup transcript. Medel asserts that the prosecution failed to produce over one hundred documents in its possession that fell within the scope of his discovery requests.
¶ 5 In April 1987, the prosecutor offered Medel a plea bargain, which Medel accepted in June. In accordance with the plea agreement, Medel pled guilty to two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of object rape and one count of aggravated sexual assault. In exchange, the prosecutor dropped the other twelve felony charges. As a result of his guilty pleas, Medel was sentenced to four consecutive sentences of five years to life.
¶ 6 Four years later, in 1991, Medel filed his first petition for post-conviction relief. Following an evidentiary hearing, the first petition was dismissed in January 1993. Medel then filed a motion to withdraw his guilty pleas. Judge Medley denied the motion in April 1995, finding that Medel's pleas were knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. Judge Medley's decision noted that before Medel entered his pleas, he reviewed detailed probable cause statements, "demonstrating that [he] understood the nature and elements of the offenses" to which he pled. Judge Medley also noted that defense counsel reviewed each affidavit with Medel "paragraph by paragraph, line by line prior to entry of the pleas" and that the district court performed a detailed plea colloquy. Based on the record as a whole, Judge Medley found that Medel's guilty pleas to all four first degree felonies were knowing and voluntary. Medel appealed. In an unpublished memorandum decision, the court of appeals affirmed the judgment, with one exception regarding sentencing.
¶ 7 After Medel's petition for a writ of certiorari was denied by this court in 1998, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the federal district court of Utah. The federal court denied the petition, and Medel appealed the denial without success.5
¶ 8 In June 2003, Medel filed this petition for post-conviction relief, contending that the prosecution violated his due process rights under Brady v. Maryland6 by failing to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence before he entered his guilty pleas. Medel grounds his Brady claim on the results of several GRAMA requests that he filed in 2003. The State's response to these requests indicates that the State failed to disclose certain evidence in its possession before it entered into plea negotiations with Medel. According to Medel, the State "knew of the undisclosed evidence's potentially exculpatory or at least mitigating value and knew that timely disclosure would jeopardize any chances of gaining pleas of guilty in all three criminal cases."
¶ 9 The undisclosed evidence on which Medel bases his Brady claim can be grouped into two categories. The first consists of a psychological report from Dr. Michael DeCaria ("DeCaria Report" or "Report"). The second includes all other undisclosed evidence (the "other undisclosed evidence").
¶ 10 The DeCaria Report documents DeCaria's psychological examination of Medel in February 1987. The purpose of the examination was to evaluate Medel's eligibility for supervised release. In the Report, DeCaria notes that Medel's "memory and sensory processes appeared intact." Moreover, Medel Despite these observations, however, DeCaria noted that Medel showed "evidence of psychotic thought processes" and that Medel's "psychotic behavior may take the form of an active fantasy life and a failure to distinguish adequately between fact and fantasy." DeCaria also noted that Medel had "poor impulse control" and "rebelliousness," which DeCaria found consistent with "antisocial acting out," particularly when intoxicated.
¶ 11 Medel asserts that if he had received the DeCaria Report prior to pleading guilty it would have convinced him to go to trial and assert a defense of diminished capacity. He also argues that the Report demonstrates that he was not competent to plead guilty.
¶ 12 The other undisclosed evidence is far more nebulous. It consists of several items allegedly in the State's possession prior to Medel's guilty pleas, including: medical evaluations of two of the victims, victim statements from all three victims, physical evidence from Medel's car obtained pursuant to a search warrant, reports analyzing physical evidence taken from Medel, a composite drawing of a police suspect, lineup cards used by the victims, follow-up reports from the sheriff's office, photographic and criminal records of two alternative suspects, and police reports summarizing the evidence in the cases.
¶ 13 Medel asserts that this other undisclosed evidence contains impeachment material that would have helped him evaluate the strength of the State's case. He argues that this evidence may have convinced him to go to trial rather than plead guilty.
¶ 14 In February 2006, Judge Dever of the Third District Court granted the State's motion to dismiss Medel's petition. Judge Dever dismissed the petition on procedural grounds, holding that it was barred by the PCRA as an improper "successive petition" because it contained claims that "could and should have been raised in his previous petition for post-conviction relief and good cause has not been shown for excusing this failure."
¶ 15 In dismissing the petition, Judge Dever considered and then rejected the potentially applicable exceptions to the procedural bars of the PCRA. He concluded that the evidence the State withheld would not have changed Medel's motivation to plead guilty because "the plea agreement allowed [him] to plead guilty to four first-degree felonies in exchange for the dismissal of twelve additional felony counts, and . . . the new information was not the type of evidence that would raise a reasonable doubt about [his] guilt." Judge Dever also concluded that the withheld evidence did not render Medel's pleas unknowing or involuntary. Specifically, the DeCaria Report did not suggest that Medel's guilty pleas were involuntary or unknowing because the Report's purpose was to assess Medel's risk to the community, not to determine his competence to plead guilty. Judge Dever also noted that Medel had previously attempted to withdraw his guilty pleas and that the court had, after ...
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