State v. Flora
| Decision Date | 30 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 20170241,20170241 |
| Citation | 459 P.3d 975 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Paul Lambert FLORA, Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Sean D. Reyes, Att’y Gen., William M. Hains, Asst. Solic. Gen., Salt Lake City, for appellee
Douglas J. Thompson, Provo, for appellant
Introduction
¶1 Paul Lambert Flora pled guilty to felony DUI. Before sentencing, he timely moved to withdraw his plea under Utah Code section 77-13-6, the Plea Withdrawal Statute. After the district court denied his motion, Mr. Flora appealed, raising two new arguments under the plain-error and ineffective-assistance-of-counsel exceptions to the preservation rule. The court of appeals certified Mr. Flora’s case to us for original appellate review after we granted certiorari in the related case of State v. Badikyan .1 As we do in Badikyan , we hold here that the Plea Withdrawal Statute prohibits us from considering Mr. Flora’s unpreserved arguments.2 In so doing, we clarify that defendants may not rely on our preservation exceptions when appealing the denial of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea.
¶2 On May 16, 2016, a Nephi City police officer pulled Mr. Flora over after receiving a call about a disturbance at a nearby Flying J convenience store. According to the caller, Mr. Flora knocked over several cigarette ashtrays in front of the Flying J and then sped away in a red Ford Ranger with no license plates. After pulling Mr. Flora over, the officer noticed that Mr. Flora smelled of alcohol, slurred his words, and could not maintain his balance. The officer placed Mr. Flora under arrest.
¶3 Because Mr. Flora received two prior DUI convictions in the past ten years, the State charged him with felony DUI. It also charged him with disorderly conduct, public intoxication, failure to display license plates, and driving without a license. After appointing Mr. Flora a public defender, the district court held a preliminary hearing on June 14, 2016. Then, on November 10, 2016, Mr. Flora pled guilty to felony DUI and the State dropped the other charges.
¶4 Mr. Flora’s initial public defender withdrew on December 29, 2016, after Juab County awarded its indigent-defense contract to a new law firm. He was appointed new counsel on January 4, 2017. On February 7, 2017, Mr. Flora moved to withdraw his guilty plea. He argued that his plea was not knowing and voluntary, because a mix-up with his court dates forced him to either plead guilty or go to trial and lose. The district court denied this motion on February 21, 2017, and sentenced Mr. Flora on February 28, 2017.
¶5 Mr. Flora now appeals the denial of his plea-withdrawal motion. On appeal, he asserts two new arguments that he did not present to the district court. Both arguments rest on the premise that his behavior throughout the proceedings should have alerted the district court and trial counsel to the possibility that he was not competent to plead guilty. For example, he asserts that in both his preliminary hearing and plea hearing, he made several statements that raise doubts about his competency. At his plea hearing, for instance, when the court asked him if he had reviewed his plea agreement, Mr. Flora responded by saying:
¶6 Additionally, following Mr. Flora’s plea, the district court ordered a presentence report from Adult Probation and Parole (AP&P). This report also contained several strange statements. For example, Mr. Flora began his presentence packet by writing, "None of your psychological wisdom can Trump mine." And when asked to write a brief history of his life for the report, Mr. Flora wrote, An AP&P investigator also noted in the report that Mr. Flora "struggled to track [their] conversation" and recommended that Mr. Flora obtain a mental health evaluation.
¶7 Given this behavior, Mr. Flora argues that instead of denying his plea-withdrawal motion, the district court should have sua sponte ordered a competency hearing, and that its failure to do so constitutes plain error. He also argues that his attorneys at the district-court level provided ineffective assistance because they, too, knew about his behavior and did not investigate his competency.3
¶8 The parties briefed and argued this matter before the court of appeals, which then certified the matter to us under Utah Code section 78A-4-103(3) and rule 43 of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure. Along with his appeal, Mr. Flora filed a motion under rule 23B of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure to remand his case to the district court for findings necessary to determine ineffective assistance of counsel. We have jurisdiction under Utah Code section 78A-3-102(3)(b).
¶9 Under the doctrine of preservation, "[w]hen a party fails to raise and argue an issue in the trial court, it has failed to preserve the issue, and an appellate court will not typically reach that issue absent a valid exception to preservation."4 "This court has recognized three distinct exceptions to preservation: plain error, ineffective assistance of counsel, and exceptional circumstances."5 A party seeking review of an unpreserved issue "must establish the applicability of one of these exceptions to persuade an appellate court to reach that issue."6
¶10 Because Mr. Flora did not raise his competency-related arguments in the district court, he asks us to reach them under the plain-error and ineffective-assistance-of-counsel preservation exceptions. To establish plain error, a defendant must show (1) "an error exists," (2) "the error should have been obvious to the trial court," and (3) "the error is harmful."7 And to establish ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must show (1) "that counsel’s performance was objectively deficient" and (2) "a reasonable probability exists that but for the deficient conduct defendant would have obtained a more favorable outcome at trial."8
¶11 But as we explain below, Mr. Flora cannot invoke these exceptions when appealing the denial of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea. The Plea Withdrawal Statute has its own preservation rule that is separate from the common-law preservation rule, and to which our recognized exceptions do not apply.
¶12 The Plea Withdrawal Statute allows defendants to withdraw a guilty plea only if they (1) show that their plea "was not knowingly and voluntarily made" and (2) make this showing "by motion before sentence is announced."9 "Any challenge" to a guilty plea that does not meet these requirements must be pursued under the Post-Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA).10 In State v. Rettig and State v. Allgier , we held that these requirements create a rule of preservation that is distinct from our traditional preservation doctrine.11 And in Rettig , we also held that this statute-based rule is not subject to the recognized preservation exceptions, which are grounded in the common law.12 Consequently, we concluded that the defendants in those cases—who both failed to comply with the Plea Withdrawal Statute because they moved to withdraw their pleas after sentencing—could not bring unpreserved claims based on the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel exception.13
¶13 Mr. Flora argues that Rettig and Allgier are inapplicable to his case because he complied with the statute and made his plea-withdrawal request before sentencing. He claims that "[n]othing in this [c]ourt’s opinions, or in the language of the statute, even remotely suggests that the [statute’s] preservation requirement goes beyond the need to preserve a challenge to the validity of the guilty plea." To the contrary, our Rettig and Allgier opinions and the Plea Withdrawal Statute’s plain language both indicate that defendants may not raise unpreserved claims when appealing the denial of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea—even if they filed their motion before sentencing. Rettig and Allgier strongly indicate that common-law preservation exceptions do not apply to the Plea Withdrawal Statute’s preservation rule, regardless of whether a defendant moves to withdraw before or after sentencing. But even assuming those cases are distinguishable from Mr. Flora’s, the Plea Withdrawal Statute’s plain language would still bar his unpreserved claims.
¶14 Mr. Flora argues that defendants who move to withdraw their pleas before sentencing can raise unpreserved claims on appeal if those claims fall within a common-law preservation exception. When Mr. Flora appealed the district court’s denial of his timely motion to withdraw, he raised two new challenges to his plea under the plain-error and ineffective-assistance-of-counsel exceptions. He argues that the Plea Withdrawal Statute’s preservation rule does not prohibit him from raising these challenges, because he satisfied the rule by moving to withdraw before sentencing. But according to our decisions in Rettig and Allgier , the statute’s preservation rule bars appellate review of all...
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State v. Badikyan
...Utah Code § 77-13-6.2 2017 UT 83, 416 P.3d 520.3 2017 UT 84, 416 P.3d 546.4 This holding is identical to our holding in State v. Flora , 2020 UT 2, 459 P.3d 975, issued concurrently with this opinion.5 Although Mr. Badikyan’s pro se letter stated he was "under much pressure from [his] lawye......
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...statutory interpretation, we focus on the statute's plain language because it is the ‘best evidence’ of the legislature's intent." State v. Flora , 2020 UT 2, ¶ 21, 459 P.3d 975 (quoting State v. Stewart , 2018 UT 24, ¶ 12, 438 P.3d 515 ). We "presume that the legislature used each word adv......
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...the alleged error. See id. ¶¶ 10–21.¶22 Finally, Littlejohn's argument is foreclosed by our supreme court's recent ruling in State v. Flora , 2020 UT 2, 459 P.3d 975, a case materially indistinguishable from this one. In Flora , the defendant attempted to argue, on appeal, that "his behavio......
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