State v. Doolin
| Decision Date | 19 March 2019 |
| Docket Number | WD 80973 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Adrian S. DOOLIN, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Evan J. Buchheim, Jefferson City, for Respondent.
S. Kate Webber, for Appellant.
Before Division Two: Edward R. Ardini, Jr., Presiding Judge, Gary D. Witt, Judge and Thomas N. Chapman, Judge
Adrian Doolin appeals the denial of his Rule 29.07(d)1 motion to withdraw his guilty plea by the Circuit Court of Buchanan County. Doolin claims that his guilty plea to sexual misconduct in the first degree was induced by plea counsel’s assurance that he would never be required to register as a sex offender. He argues that this advice was erroneous and resulted in manifest injustice. We affirm.
Doolin was charged with the class C felony of possession of a controlled substance (Xanax) and the class B misdemeanor of sexual misconduct in the first degree.2 Doolin entered open guilty pleas to both offenses on September 5, 2014.
At the plea hearing, Doolin admitted that while trying on clothes at a Goodwill store, he began disrobing and exposed his genitals to a store employee. Doolin was ejected from the store and went across the street to a shopping mall where he was subsequently arrested. A search of his backpack incident to his arrest revealed Xanax pills, for which Doolin did not have a prescription.
A discussion ensued over whether his plea to sexual misconduct in the first degree would require registration as a sex offender:
The court accepted Doolin’s guilty pleas. On November 10, 2014, a sentencing hearing was held. At the hearing, Doolin’s plea counsel identified to the court two errors in the sentencing assessment report (SAR). First, the SAR incorrectly stated that the sexual misconduct charge to which Doolin pleaded guilty was a class D felony when, in fact, it was a class B misdemeanor. The SAR also stated that Doolin "shall comply with the state sex offender registration laws[.]" Plea counsel explained to the court that no registration was required, and the court made the change to the SAR:
Doolin then sought clarification that he would not have to register as a sex offender:
Following this exchange, Doolin did not seek to withdraw his guilty plea or make any objection to continuing with his sentencing.
The court sentenced Doolin to two years in the Department of Corrections for possession of a controlled substance, to run consecutive to other sentences that Doolin was then serving. The court also sentenced Doolin to six months in the Buchanan County jail for sexual misconduct in the first degree, to run concurrent to the sentence for possession of a controlled substance.3
Nearly two years later, on September 20, 2016, Doolin filed a motion pursuant to Rule 29.07(d) to withdraw the guilty plea he entered to the sexual misconduct charge. In the motion, Doolin alleged that his guilty plea "resulted in manifest injustice because it was based on erroneous assurances from his plea attorney and the prosecutor that if he pled guilty to that charge he would not ever be required to register as a sex offender."
An evidentiary hearing was held at which the court received testimony from Doolin4 and his plea counsel.
Doolin testified that he specifically asked plea counsel whether registration would be required if he pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct in the first degree and was told that the registration requirements would not apply to him. Doolin further stated that while plea counsel did not explain how changes to the sex offender registration law would apply to individuals who had previously pleaded guilty, he believed plea counsel told him that he would never have to register and he "took that as to be forever." Doolin claimed that, had plea counsel told him that he might have to register as a sex offender in the future, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have gone to trial.
Plea counsel acknowledged that Doolin asked whether he would be required to register if he pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct in the first degree. Plea counsel testified that, in response to the inquiry, research was conducted into the registration requirement for the offense of sexual misconduct in the first degree under the Missouri sex offender registration law and the federal sex offender registration law (SORNA). Plea counsel concluded, with the aid of a colleague and a paralegal, that neither the Missouri sex offender registration law nor SORNA required Doolin to register as a sex offender at the time of the plea. Plea counsel memorialized this conclusion in a letter sent to Doolin prior to the guilty plea.5 Plea counsel testified that he did not inform Doolin that the sex offender registration law would never change or that Doolin would never have to register if he pleaded guilty. Instead, plea counsel explained to Doolin the state of the law at the time of the guilty plea, which did not require registration. Plea counsel also indicated that he apprised Doolin that he "had no control over the Missouri state legislature, [and] that [he] had no control over what may happen in the future[.]"6
The motion court denied Doolin’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea, finding that plea counsel provided Doolin accurate legal advice concerning the registration requirements and there existed no manifest injustice.
Doolin appeals.
We first address the State’s claim that this appeal should be dismissed because this Court lacks appellate jurisdiction over the denial of Doolin’s Rule 29.07(d) motion. Rule 29.07(d) states:
A motion to withdraw a plea of guilty may be made only before sentence is imposed or when imposition of sentence is suspended; but to correct manifest injustice the court after sentence may set aside the judgment of conviction and permit the defendant to withdraw his plea.
The State directs us to State v. Larson , 79 S.W.3d 891 (Mo. banc 2002), and its holding that "[a] trial court’s ruling of a Rule 29.07(d) motion is not a final judgment and fits within no exception to the final judgment rule and thus [is] not appealable under either civil or criminal definitions." Larson , 79 S.W.3d at 893. In Larson , however, no final conviction was entered because the trial court had suspended imposition of sentence. Indeed, the Larson court underscored this point, noting that the pre-sentencing Rule 29.07(d) motion was "part and parcel of the ongoing criminal case," and that in the underlying criminal case, "[n]o sentence [was] entered and there is no final judgment and the trial court retains jurisdiction." Id. The Missouri Supreme Court has subsequently described Larson’s holding as limited to cases in which no final judgment of conviction has been entered. See Stanley v. State , 420 S.W.3d 532, 544 n. 11 (Mo. banc 2014) (describing the Larson to be that "an appeal of a denial of a request to withdraw a guilty plea is not allowed when the motion came before imposition of sentence because the denial is not a final order when sentence is not yet imposed"); State v. Saffaf , 81 S.W.3d 526, 527 (Mo. banc 2002) (citing Larson for the proposition that "[a] motion to withdraw a guilty plea under Rule 29.07(d) where the imposition of sentence has been suspended is not an appealable final judgment"). By contrast, imposition of Doolin’s sentence was not suspended, rendering it a final judgment of conviction and Larson inapplicable.
Rule 29.07(d) permits a defendant to move to withdraw a guilty plea following the imposition of sentence "to correct manifest injustice," and appellate...
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State v. Wolf
...exclusive procedure by which such person may seek relief in the sentencing court for the claims enumerated.2 Cf. State v. Doolin , 572 S.W.3d 112, 118 (Mo. App. W.D. 2019) (defendant's claim in Rule 29.07(d) motion that he was induced to plead guilty by counsel's assurance that he would nev......