State v. Badikyan

• Decision Date: 30 January 2020
• Docket Number: No. 20180883,20180883
• Citation: 459 P.3d 967
• Parties: STATE of Utah, Respondent, v. Stepan BADIKYAN, Petitioner.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

459 P.3d 967

STATE of Utah, Respondent,

v.Stepan BADIKYAN, Petitioner.

No. 20180883

Supreme Court of Utah.

Heard October 8, 2019

Filed January 30, 2020

Sean D. Reyes, Att’y Gen., Christopher D. Ballard, Asst. Solic. Gen., Salt Lake City, for respondent

Scott L. Wiggins, Salt Lake City, for petitioner

Chief Justice Durrant authored the opinion of the Court, in which Associate Chief Justice Lee, Justice Himonas, Justice Pearce, and Justice Petersen joined.

On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals

Introduction

Chief Justice Durrant, opinion of the Court:

¶1 Stepan Badikyan pled guilty to attempted murder. Before sentencing, he filed a motion to withdraw his plea, which the district court denied. When Mr. Badikyan appealed this denial to the court of appeals, he raised a new challenge under the plain-error exception to the preservation rule. Relying on our recent interpretations of Utah’s Plea Withdrawal Statute¹ in State v. Rettig² and State v. Allgier ,³ the court of appeals held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear Mr. Badikyan’s unpreserved claim. He then petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which we granted. We affirm the court of appeals. In so doing, we hold that the Plea Withdrawal Statute bars review of unpreserved claims raised as part of an appeal from the denial of a timely plea-withdrawal motion.⁴

Background

¶2 On May 29, 2014, Mr. Badikyan stabbed his wife in the arm with a box cutter. He agreed to drive her to the hospital, but on the way he changed course and told her they were "both going to die that day." When Mr. Badikyan stopped at an intersection, his wife fled the car. He then chased her down, tackled her to the ground, and stabbed her again with the box cutter, this time in the side and neck. Several bystanders stopped Mr. Badikyan and held him down until the police arrived.

¶3 The State charged Mr. Badikyan with three crimes: attempted murder, evidence tampering, and aggravated assault. He initially pled not guilty to all three charges. But he later struck a deal with the State and pled guilty to attempted murder. In exchange, the State dismissed the other two charges and agreed it would not oppose Mr. Badikyan when he requested credit for time served.

¶4 At Mr. Badikyan’s change-of-plea hearing, his trial counsel prepared a plea agreement that listed information about the plea and the agreed-upon facts. Mr. Badikyan is a native Armenian who "speaks very little English, and does not read English." So before he pled guilty, an interpreter translated the terms of his plea agreement and assisted him at the change-of-plea hearing. Mr. Badikyan’s trial counsel stated at the hearing that the interpreter translated the plea agreement "verbatim word-for-word," and trial counsel was confident Mr. Badikyan understood the agreement. Mr. Badikyan also confirmed in a plea colloquy that his plea was voluntary and that he had been provided an interpreter.

¶5 After the change-of-plea hearing, but prior to sentencing, Mr. Badikyan timely moved to withdraw his plea by sending a pro se letter to the district court. He argued in the letter that his plea was not knowing and voluntary because he "was very stressed and under much pressure from [his] lawyer." After receiving this letter, the district court appointed conflict counsel, who then filed a formal motion to withdraw Mr. Badikyan’s plea.

¶6 Upon receiving Mr. Badikyan’s formal motion to withdraw, the district court held an evidentiary hearing, providing a different interpreter than the one who attended his change-of-plea hearing. There, Mr. Badikyan testified that his former interpreter mistranslated his plea agreement. He claimed he "couldn’t understand everything" that was being read to him at the time of his plea and, as a result, "pleaded guilty not knowing the entire situation." He also testified that trial counsel unduly tried "convincing" him to enter the plea agreement⁵ and did not fully explain the immigration consequences of his plea. Finally, Mr. Badikyan claimed that mental health issues prevented him from entering a knowing and voluntary plea.

¶7 The district court denied his motion, ruling that "there were no specific instances given or particular inaccuracies of translation" that influenced his plea. It also ruled that trial counsel did not oversell the plea bargain and clearly communicated its immigration consequences. Finally, the court ruled that Mr. Badikyan’s mental health issues did not affect his ability to comprehend the change–of–plea proceedings.

¶8 Mr. Badikyan appealed this ruling, which was affirmed by the court of appeals in State v. Badikyan .⁶ Instead of attacking the district court’s ruling, Mr. Badikyan argued for the first time "that he did not understand the critical elements of attempted murder."⁷ He "concede[d] that he did not present his critical elements theory to the district court," but argued he was entitled to present it "under the plain error exception to the preservation rule."⁸

¶9 The court of appeals ruled that, under Utah’s Plea Withdrawal Statute,⁹ it lacked jurisdiction to consider Mr. Badikyan’s unpreserved critical-elements challenge. Invoking our recent opinions in State v. Rettig¹⁰ and State v. Allgier ,¹¹ the court explained that "[t]he standard set forth in the Plea Withdrawal Statute is both a rule of preservation and a jurisdictional bar on appellate consideration of matters not properly preserved."¹² Under this standard, the court concluded that it could not hear Mr. Badikyan’s critical-elements challenge because he "failed to properly preserve his legal theory in the district court."¹³

¶10 Following this ruling, we granted Mr. Badikyan’s petition for certiorari. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78A-3-102(3)(a).

Standard of Review

¶11 Mr. Badikyan raises a single issue: whether the court of appeals erred in concluding it lacked jurisdiction to consider an unpreserved claim as part of an appeal from a denial of a timely motion to withdraw a guilty plea. On certiorari, we "review the decision of the court of appeals for correctness, without deference to its conclusions of law."¹⁴

Analysis

¶12 We granted certiorari to decide whether Utah Code section 77-13-6, the Plea Withdrawal Statute, allows defendants to invoke our recognized preservation exceptions when appealing a timely motion to withdraw a guilty plea. We held in State v. Rettig and State v. Allgier that the statute prohibits appellate review of all unpreserved plea challenges raised on untimely motions to withdraw, including those that fall within the traditional exceptions to the preservation doctrine.¹⁵ Now Mr. Badikyan asks us to decide whether the same is true of new challenges raised on timely motions; that is, whether he may raise an unpreserved claim on appeal that falls within one of our preservation exceptions.

¶13 As we explained in Rettig , the Plea Withdrawal Statute creates a rule of preservation that is separate and distinct from our common-law preservation doctrine.¹⁶ Under our common-law doctrine, if a party fails to present an issue to the trial court, an appellate court will address that issue only if it falls within one of three recognized exceptions: plain error, ineffective assistance of counsel, or exceptional circumstances.¹⁷ We held in Rettig and Allgier that defendants cannot rely on these common-law preservation exceptions when appealing the denial of a plea-withdrawal motion made after sentencing, which violates the Plea Withdrawal Statute.¹⁸ And we clarified that an untimely motion to withdraw forecloses appellate review of all post-sentencing plea challenges, including those based on our recognized preservation exceptions.¹⁹

¶14 Mr. Badikyan argues that his case is factually distinct from Rettig and Allgier because he timely moved to withdraw his plea before sentencing, as required by the Plea Withdrawal Statute. He claims that this factual distinction renders Rettig and Allgier inapplicable, so his case is controlled by the Plea Withdrawal Statute’s plain language. And the plain language of the statute, Mr. Badikyan argues, allows him to raise an unpreserved plea challenge on appeal if that challenge falls within one of our recognized preservation exceptions.

¶15 We disagree and affirm the court of appeals’ conclusion that the Plea Withdrawal Statute bars appellate review of all unpreserved claims, even those made on appeal of timely motions to withdraw. Our decisions in Rettig and Allgier , as well as the Plea Withdrawal Statute’s plain language, mandate this outcome.

I. The Preservation Rule Established in Rettig and Allgier Is Not Subject to Our Recognized Preservation Exceptions

¶16 We agree with the court of appeals that the Plea Withdrawal Statute’s preservation rule, as articulated in State v. Rettig and State v. Allgier , precludes review of Mr. Badikyan’s unpreserved claim.²⁰ These decisions indicate that the common-law preservation exceptions do not apply to the statute’s unique preservation rule, even in cases where a defendant moved to withdraw his or her plea before sentencing.

¶17 This court has long held that the Plea Withdrawal Statute "cuts off a defendant’s right to a direct appeal once sentencing is announced."²¹ In Gailey v. State , for example, we declined to hear a defendant’s post-sentencing attempt to challenge her plea as unknowing and involuntary because both our case law and the plain language of the Plea Withdrawal Statute impose "a procedural bar" on direct appeals once sentencing takes place.²² We have reached similar conclusions in a line of cases spanning nearly two decades.²³

¶18 We built on this line of precedent in Rettig and Allgier . These two cases addressed how the Plea Withdrawal Statute affects an unpreserved issue raised for the first time on a defendant’s untimely motion to withdraw. Like the defendant in Gailey , the Rettig and Allgier defendants both tried to withdraw their pleas after sentencing. But, unlike the defendant in Gailey , both also raised...