People v. Al-Shara
| Decision Date | 18 August 2015 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 320209. |
| Citation | 876 N.W.2d 826,311 Mich.App. 560 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. AL–SHARA. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Bill Schuette, Attorney General, Aaron D. Lindstrom, Solicitor General, Kym L. Worthy, Prosecuting Attorney, Timothy A. Baughman, Chief of Research, and Margaret Gillis Ayalp, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
Cecilia Quirindongo Baunsoe, for defendant.
Before: HOEKSTRA, P.J., and SAWYER and BORRELLO, JJ.
HOEKSTRA
, P.J.
The prosecution appeals by leave granted a circuit court order vacating defendant's nolo contendere plea. Because the district court failed to advise defendant of his Jaworski1 rights during the plea proceedings as required by MCR 6.610(E)(4)
, the district court abused its discretion when it denied defendant's motion to set aside defendant's plea, and the circuit court properly reversed the district court's decision. We affirm.
As a result of an incident with his wife at a restaurant on May 27, 2013, defendant was charged with one count of domestic violence under MCL 750.81(2)
. The prosecution offered defendant a plea agreement, which he accepted. Under this agreement, defendant would plead no contest to one count of domestic violence in exchange for a sentence consisting of one year of probation with credit for two months of probation already served, and no jail time. It is uncontested that, on May 31, 2013, defendant signed a written Pre–Trial Conference Summary form detailing the terms of the plea agreement.2 This form, signed by defendant, also included the following waiver of defendant's trial rights:
On May 31, 2013, the district court held a hearing during which the parties indicated that they had come to a resolution in the case and that defendant wished to enter a no contest plea. After recounting the terms of the agreement and confirming that defendant realized the plea would constitute a violation of a previous order of probation entered in another case, the district court concluded that there was factual support for defendant's plea in the contents of an incident report dated May 27, 2013. In terms of advising defendant of the rights he waived by entering a plea, the district court engaged in the following brief colloquy with defendant:
Once the district court accepted defendant's plea, it heard the victim's impact statement, and it immediately proceeded to sentence defendant in accordance with the plea agreement reached by the parties.
On August 9, 2013, defendant filed a timely motion in the district court to withdraw his plea. In relevant part, defendant asserted that he should be permitted to withdraw his plea because the district court failed to advise defendant of his rights as required by MCR 6.610(E)
. According to defendant, this obvious error affected his substantial rights and merited setting aside his plea.
The district court disagreed and denied defendant's motion. The district court reasoned that the proceedings as a whole did not so deviate from the court rule that defendant's substantial rights were affected, and that to allow defendant's plea to stand would not constitute a miscarriage of justice as required to set aside defendant's plea after conviction and sentencing. See People v. Ward, 459 Mich. 602, 614, 594 N.W.2d 47 (1999)
. In reaching this conclusion, the district court characterized any deviation from the court rules as a mere "technical failure." The district court further reasoned that defendant was not harmed by this technical failure because defendant signed a written form advising him of his rights, defendant was "not a stranger to court proceedings," and defendant had failed to provide an affidavit attesting to the fact that he actually failed to understand his rights. The district court further suggested that defendant's real motivation in seeking to set aside his plea was simply to avoid the probation violation consequences arising in his other case. Under these circumstances, the trial court concluded that defendant had not shown a miscarriage of justice arising from the plea proceedings and was therefore not entitled to have his plea set aside.
After the district court denied defendant's motion, defendant filed a claim of appeal in Wayne Circuit Court, again asserting that his plea should be set aside because the district court failed to comply with MCR 6.610(E)
. The circuit court applied a substantial compliance standard to its review and concluded that the plea-taking process in this case was "clearly defective" because defendant had not been advised of his rights on the record, and because the district court had failed to refer to the form signed by defendant to confirm that defendant had read and understood the form's content as required by MCR 6.610(E)(4). Because the rights omitted by the district court included the constitutional rights set forth in Boykin3 and Jaworski, the circuit court concluded that defendant's plea was invalid, that the error could not be corrected on remand, and that defendant was therefore entitled to withdraw his plea. For these reasons, the circuit court vacated defendant's plea and remanded to the district court for trial. Following the circuit court's decision, the prosecutor filed an application for leave to appeal in this Court, which we granted.4
On appeal, the prosecutor argues that the circuit court erred by vacating defendant's plea because the district court substantially complied with MCR 6.610(E)
, and defendant has not shown that any deviation from the court rule affected his substantial rights. Instead, according to the prosecution, any errors committed by the district court were minor and the combination of written and oral waivers during the proceedings served to adequately advise defendant of his rights. Because there is no indication that defendant failed to actually understand his rights, the prosecutor maintains that defendant has not shown error affecting his substantial rights or a miscarriage of justice. Under these circumstances, the prosecutor asserts that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying defendant's motion to withdraw his plea.
A trial court's ruling on a motion to withdraw a plea is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. People v. Brown, 492 Mich. 684, 688, 822 N.W.2d 208 (2012)
. An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court's decision falls outside the range of principled outcomes. People v. Fonville, 291 Mich.App. 363, 376, 804 N.W.2d 878 (2011). A trial court also necessarily abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law. People v. Swain, 288 Mich.App. 609, 628–629, 794 N.W.2d 92 (2010). To the extent resolution of this case poses questions of constitutional law or requires interpretation of court rules, our review is de novo. People v. Clement, 254 Mich.App. 387, 389–390, 657 N.W.2d 172 (2002)
.
"There is no absolute right to withdraw a guilty plea once the trial court has accepted it." People v. Patmore, 264 Mich.App. 139, 149, 693 N.W.2d 385 (2004)
. Nonetheless, when there has been a defect in the plea-taking process, a defendant may seek to set aside his or her plea. See Brown, 492 Mich. at 693, 822 N.W.2d 208 ; City of Livonia v. Jasik, 393 Mich. 439, 442–443, 224 N.W.2d 838 (1975). The withdrawal of a plea entered in district court is governed by MCR 6.610(E)(8), which states:
(a) A defendant may not challenge a plea on appeal unless the defendant moved in the trial court to withdraw the plea for noncompliance with these rules. Such a motion may be made either before or after sentence has been imposed. After imposition of sentence, the defendant may file a motion to withdraw the plea within the time for filing an application for leave to appeal under MCR 7.105[G](2)
.
(b) If the trial court determines that a deviation affecting substantial rights occurred, it shall correct the deviation and give the defendant the option of permitting the plea to stand or of withdrawing the plea. If the trial court determines either a deviation did not occur, or that the deviation did not affect substantial rights, it may permit the defendant to withdraw the plea only if it does not cause substantial prejudice to the people because of reliance on the plea.
(c) If a deviation is corrected, any appeal will be on the whole record including the subsequent advice and inquiries.
As this rule makes plain, a defendant may seek to withdraw his or her district court plea for noncompliance with the plea-taking requirements set forth in the court rules, but to succeed on such a motion, a defendant must demonstrate that a deviation affecting substantial rights occurred. See MCR 6.610(E)(8)(b)
. Given the requirements of the court rule for setting aside a plea, the question before us in this case is twofold: (1) whether the trial court deviated from the court rules governing the plea-taking process, and (2) if so, whether this deviation entitles defendant to set aside his plea.
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