People v. Jaworski

• Decision Date: 09 March 1972
• Docket Number: No. 30,30
• Citation: 194 N.W.2d 868,387 Mich. 21
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul Joseph JAWORSKI, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 868

194 N.W.2d 868

387 Mich. 21

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul Joseph JAWORSKI, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 30.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

March 9, 1972.

[387 Mich. 24] Thomas G. Plunkett, Pros. Atty., Oakland County by Dennis Donohue, Chief Appellate Counsel, for plaintiff and appellee.

Douglas Chartrand, Pontiac, Mich., for defendant and appellant.

Before the Entire Bench.

WILLIAMS, Justice.

At issue in this case ¹ is whether a plea of guilty in a state criminal proceeding accepted after the decisional date of Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969) must be set aside where the record of the plea proceedings shows that the defendant was advised of two of the three, but not the third, of the three constitutional rights Boykin found involved in a waiver of a guilty plea. The record shows that the defendant was advised of his right to trial by jury and his right to confront his accusers but not his right against self-incrimination. ²

Defendant was charged with breaking and entering. At his arraignment the defendant, while represented by counsel, stood mute and the court entered a plea of not guilty as required by statute. Subsequently, the prosecution added a second count of attempted breaking and entering to which defendant pled guilty with the advice of counsel. His plea was accepted on September 8, 1969, and defendant was sentenced to a term of four to five years in prison.

In this appeal, ³ defendant Jaworski contends that Boykin requires on-the-record statements showing that he was separately informed of and individually waived each of the following: 1) the right to trial by jury; 2) the right to confront one's accusers; and 3) the privilege against selfincrimination. The record contains specific questions by the trial court and answers by the defendant demonstrating that these alleged requirements were well met regarding the first two constitutional rights. However, it is silent as to the privilege against self-incrimination. In a divided decision the Court of Appeals, 25 Mich.App. 540, 181 N.W.2d 811 affirmed the plea conviction. The Court of Appeals held:

'We think the Brady decision has made clear that Boykin did not hold that there must be on the record waivers of Each of the enumerated federal constitutional rights before a guilty plea can be accepted.

'The court in Boykin did say 395 U.S. p. 240, 89 S.Ct. p. 1710:

'Trial strategy may of course make a plea of guilty seem the desirable course. But the record is wholly silent on that point and throws no light on it.'

'In the case before us the record is not silent on trial strategy. Rather, it shows that defendant was originally charged with a crime the maximum penalty for which is 10 years imprisonment. The record further shows that the defendant, while represented by the same counsel as has represented him throughout this case including this appeal, stood mute at the arraignment. Later the defendant pled guilty to an added count the maximum penalty for conviction under it being only five years imprisonment. This is a typical, non-silent record of plea bargaining which is a recognized form of trial strategy.' 25 Mich.App. 540, pp. 554--555, 181 N.W.2d 811, p. 818.

Chief Judge T. John Lesinski dissenting responded to the majority and stated his opinion of Boykin as follows:

'The majority herein holds that Boykin stands for the proposition that a Valid plea of guilty waives the three federal constitutional rights specifically enumerated above. However, a guilty plea, To be valid, must be Understandingly and voluntarily made.' GCR 1963, 785.3(2); Boykin, supra, 395 U.S. at 242, 243, 89 S.Ct. 1709. (Emphasis supplied.) In the constitutional sense, a guilty plea cannot be 'understandingly made' unless the defendant has Knowledge of the consequences of his act. Since the majority agrees that one of the consequences of pleading guilty is to waive three important constitutional rights, it follows that the defendant must have knowledge of the existence of these rights to effectively waive them. See Johnson v. Zerbst (1938), 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (a valid waiver under the due process clause is 'an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.') Contrary to the position of the majority, this, in my opinion, is what Boykin stated.' 25 Mich.App. 540, pp. 557--558, 181 N.W.2d 811, p. 819.

I.

In Boykin a Mobile, Alabama, grand jury issued five indictments against defendant for common-law robbery. Defendant, who was represented by court-appointed counsel, pled guilty to the charges and under Alabama practice a jury fixed his sentence as death, a permissible penalty for robbery under Alabama law. However the record was completely silent on the point as to any questions by the court or statements by the defendant regarding his plea. On appeal the United States Supreme Court held that '(I)t was error, plain on the face of the record, for the trial judge to accept petitioner's guilty plea without an affirmative showing that it was intelligent and voluntary.' 395 U.S. 238, 242, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 1711.

Discussing the rationale for this holding, Mr. Justice Douglas opined in the Court's majority opinion at page 242, 89 S.Ct. at page 1712:

'. . . In Carnley v. Cochran (citation omitted) we dealt with a problem of waiver of the right to counsel, a Sixth Amendment right. We held: 'Presuming waiver from a silent record is impermissible. The record must show or there must be an allegation and evidence which show, that an accused was offered counsel but intelligently and understandingly rejected the offer. Anything less is not waiver.' (Emphasis added.)

'We think that the same standard must be applied to determining whether a guilty plea is voluntarily made . . .

'Several federal constitutional rights are involved in a waiver that takes place when a plea of guilty is entered in a state criminal trial. First, is the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination . . . (citation omitted) Second, is the right to trial by jury. (citation omitted.) Third, is the right to confront one's accusers. (citation omitted.) We cannot presume a waiver of these three important federal rights from a silent record.' (Emphasis added.) Boykin v. Alabama, Supra, pp. 242--243, 89 S.Ct. p. 1712.

While it may be true, as the majority of the Court of Appeals reasoned, that 'Boykin is devoid of any specific language stating that in order to have a valid waiver of the three federal constitutional rights involved when a plea of guilty is entered the three rights must be specifically enumerated and specifically waived,' 25 Mich.App. 540, 548, 181 N.W.2d 811, 814, in our opinion both Justice Douglas' language and his logic require that the defendant must be informed of these three rights, for without knowledge he cannot understandingly waive those rights.

For example, Justice Douglas in the Boykin opinion, 395 U.S. 238, 242, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 1712, set forth above, quoted Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 82 S.Ct. 884, 8 L.Ed.2d 70 (1962) as follows:

'The record must show or there must be an allegation and evidence which show, that an accused was offered counsel but intelligently and understandingly rejected the offer.'

While the case quoted involved only one right, it clearly required that the defendant be advised of that right on the record or by proper allegation and evidence. There is no apparent logic why if three rights were involved, it would serve to advise the defendant of only one or two, because the purpose is to enable the defendant to make an intelligent and understanding decision. It is hard to argue that making a decision based on one third or two thirds of the facts, assuming knowledge of these rights would have equal impact, is intelligent; it certainly is not understanding. One thinks irresistibly of the common term 'half-baked opinion.'

Furthermore, immediately after the quotation 'We cannot presume a waiver of these three important federal rights from a silent record' 395 U.S. 238, 243, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 1712, quoted above, is a small arabic 5 indicating an explanatory footnote. Footnote 5 deserves to be read and is set forth in appropriate part here:

5 'In the federal regime we have Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure which governs the duty of the trial judge before accepting a guilty plea.

See McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418. We said in that case:

'A defendant who enters such a plea simultaneously waives several constitutional rights, including his privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, his right to trial by jury, and his right to confront his accusers. For this waiver to be valid under the Due Process Clause, it must be 'an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.' Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938). Consequently, if a defendant's guilty plea is not equally voluntary and knowing, it has been obtained in violation of due process and is therefore void . . ."

This footnote again emphasizes 'a known right or privilege.' Here the reference both in the main text of the opinion and in the footnote is to the three rights here in question. The singular form of 'right and privilege' in the footnote is because of interpolation of a quotation from Johnson v. Zerbst, Supra, which referred to a single right, although the context of the footnote obviously refers to all three rights or to each of the three individually.

Chief Judge T. John Lesinski in his dissenting opinion in the part quoted above relies on the same reasoning. We hold that his is the correct interpretation of Boykin and that the record must show that the defendant has been informed of each and all of the three constitutional rights he waives on pleading guilty.

II.

The United States Supreme Court handed down the Boykin decision on June 2, 1969. This...