State v. Brown
| Decision Date | 28 January 1969 |
| Citation | 157 Conn. 492,255 A.2d 612 |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. James BROWN. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Ralph F. Scofield, Sp. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).
Otto J. Saur, State's Atty., for appellee (State).
Before KING, C.J., and ALCORN, HOUSE, THIM and RYAN, JJ.
The finding of facts in this case, which is not subject to any material correction, discloses that the defendant was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of murder in the first degree. He was represented by the public defender and entered a plea of not guilty. Subsequently, on October 18, 1967, when the case was reached for trial and while he was represented by two public defenders, the defendant appeared and changed his plea to guilty of murder in the second degree. The import of his plea had been fully explained to him by his attorneys, and, before the change in plea was permitted by the court, it questioned him at length about the voluntariness of his proposed plea and his comprehension of its effect. The court thereupon accepted the change of plea and continued the case for disposition pending receipt of the report of the mandatory presentence investigation.
After the defendant had been returned to jail and pending receipt of the presentence report, he caused to be written to the office of the attorney general a letter in which he indicated that his change of plea was made involuntarily. The letter came to the attention of the presiding judge of the Superior Court who thereupon ordered that the defendant be returned to court for a hearing as to the cause of his dissatisfaction. At this hearing, the defendant claimed that he had not understood the proceedings at the time he changed his plea and that his changed plea was not voluntarily made but resulted from the overpersuasiveness of counsel. He stated that he wished to vacate his guilty plea and wanted to have new counsel appointed to represent him.
The court thereafter appointed a fourth and special public defender to confer with the defendant. This counsel filed an application on behalf of the defendant which alleged that the defendant was not guilty of the crime to which he had entered a plea of guilty and applied for permission to withdraw the plea. After a full hearing, during which the court heard testimony from the defendant and from two of the special public defenders who had represented the defendant, as well as received exhibits in evidence, heard a summary of the state's case and heard arguments of counsel, the court denied the defendant's application to withdraw his guilty plea. The court thereupon imposed sentence, and from the judgment rendered the defendant has appealed. The decisive assignments of error relate to the court's denial of the defendant's application for permission to withdraw his plea of guilty.
In denying the defendant's application for permission to withdraw his plea of guilty to murder in the second degree, the court based its decision on certain conclusions which it enumerated in detail. These were: the defendant had sufficient mental capacity to enter a voluntary plea; he was 'exposed to possible electrocution in the event the court should allow a withdrawal of the plea of guilty'; he had more than adequate representation by counsel; no importuning was used to induce him to change his plea to guilty; from the court's own observation, the plea was freely and voluntarily made; and the averments relating to the involuntary nature of his change of plea were not entitled to credit on the basis of the evidence and the court's observations in the course of several court appearances by the defendant. Also, on the basis of its finding of facts, the court concluded: 'Justice was served not only for the State but for the defendant himself because of the gravity of the situation and the exposure that might await him if his motion to withdraw his plea of guilty to Second Degree Murder had been granted.' The defendant claims that the court erred in reaching this conclusion, asserting that the facts set forth in the finding do not support it.
This court has never attempted to lay down specific guidelines for the assistance of a trial court in deciding the merits of an application to withdraw a plea in a criminal case. Indeed, since of necessity each case must depend on its own...
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Szarwak v. Warden, Connecticut Correctional Institution
...are collected in annotations in 20 A.L.R. 1445 and 66 A.L.R. 628, entitled 'Right to withdraw plea of guilty." State v. Brown, 157 Conn. 492, 495-496, 255 A.2d 612, 613. We have repeatedly held that once entered, a guilty plea cannot be withdrawn except by leave of the court, within its sou......
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