State v. Maddox
| Decision Date | 07 May 2018 |
| Docket Number | A17-0814 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Harry Maddox, III, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).
Affirmed
Sibley County District Court
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota;
David E. Schauer, Sibley County Attorney, Winthrop, Minnesota (for respondent)
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Sara J. Euteneuer, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Schellhas, Presiding Judge; Halbrooks, Judge; and Jesson, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Appellant challenges the validity of his guilty plea to the crime of offering forged checks, arguing that his plea is inaccurate because he did not state in his plea colloquy that he intended to defraud. We affirm.
In 2015, an Eagan police officer was investigating a burglary involving business checks that were stolen from a bakery. According to the officer, the checks began appearing at gas stations in Minnesota and Wisconsin signed with names such as M.K., M.P., and A.W. Through video surveillance, the officer identified appellant Harry Maddox, III, as the individual who had forged the checks.
Police executed a search warrant at Maddox's residence. They found clothing that matched what Maddox wore in the gas-station surveillance videos and Minnesota identification cards belonging to M.P. and A.W. Maddox subsequently admitted offering forged checks.
The state charged Maddox with offering forged checks under Minn. Stat. § 609.631, subd. 3 (2014). The state offered Maddox a plea whereby he would be sentenced to 24 months in prison with 348 days' credit for time served, all fines and surcharges would be waived, and a civil judgment would be created for the victims who filed restitution affidavits. Maddox accepted the offer and pleaded guilty. The district court accepted Maddox's plea and sentenced him according to the terms of the plea agreement. This appeal follows.1
A defendant does not have an absolute right to withdraw a guilty plea. State v. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d 90, 94 (Minn. 2010). But a district court must allow a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea if withdrawing the guilty plea is "necessary to correct a manifest injustice." Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1. A manifest injustice arises when a guilty plea is not valid. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94. A guilty plea is valid if it is accurate, voluntary, and intelligent. Id. The defendant seeking to withdraw his guilty plea carries the burden of proving that his plea was invalid. Id. We review the validity of a guilty plea de novo. Id.
"The accuracy requirement protects a defendant from pleading guilty to a more serious offense than that for which he could be convicted if he insisted on his right to trial." Id. A guilty plea is accurate if it is established by a proper factual basis. Id. A proper factual basis includes sufficient record facts that when taken together support a determination that the "defendant's conduct falls within the charge to which he desires to plead guilty." State v. Iverson, 664 N.W.2d 346, 349 (Minn. 2003) (quotation omitted). A factual basis is inadequate if the defendant makes statements during the plea hearing that "negate an essential element of the charged crime." See id. at 350 ().
Maddox pleaded guilty to offering forged checks. See Minn. Stat. § 609.631, subd. 3. The elements of the crime of offering a forged check are: (1) a person, with intent to defraud, (2) offers, or possesses with intent to offer, (3) a forged check, whether or not it is accepted. Id.
At the plea hearing, Maddox's public defender asked Maddox a series of questions about the check-forgery allegations:
Maddox makes two arguments in support of his position that plea withdrawal is necessary here. First, Maddox maintains that the factual basis does not establish the intentelement of the crime of offering forged checks because he did not explicitly state during the plea colloquy that he had the specific intent to defraud. We disagree. A defendant need not expressly state that he had the specific intent to defraud in order for a plea colloquy to establish a proper factual basis because intent is most often proved circumstantially by the inferences that can be drawn from the defendant's words or his actions "in light of all the surrounding circumstances." Nelson v. State, 880 N.W.2d 852, 860 (Minn. 2016) (quotation omitted). For example, in State v. Knight, the supreme court affirmed a guilty plea of theft by check, which also required that the state prove the defendant acted with the intent to defraud even though the defendant did not expressly state in the plea colloquy that he specifically intended to defraud. 292 Minn. 419, 422, 192 N.W.2d 829, 831 (1971).
Maddox admitted during the plea colloquy that (1) he possessed checks that were not in his name, (2) he offered them to businesses, and (3) he received "services, products and financial ability," and (4) the business received nothing of value in return. These facts are sufficient to establish that Maddox offered forged checks with the intent to defraud the businesses to which he offered them. Cf. Chapman v. State, 282 Minn. 13, 22, 162 N.W.2d 698, 704 (1968) ().
Second, Maddox checked a box in his plea petition stating: "I do . . . make the claim that I was so drunk or so under the influence of drugs or medicine that I did not know what I was doing at the time of the crime." After that sentence, there is hand-written text that says, "pain killers." Maddox contends that this statement in the record "calls into doubt whether [he] was even capable of forming the specific intent to defraud." We disagree.
We determine the accuracy of a guilty plea based on statements made on the record at the plea hearing. Vernlund v. State, 589 N.W.2d 307, 310 (Minn. App. 1999). During the plea hearing, Maddox did not testify that he lacked the proper state of mind or that he was high on pain killers when he offered the forged checks to various businesses. And when the district court asked Maddox follow-up questions about his state of mind to enter a guilty plea, the following exchange occurred:
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