State v. Merrill, 20020877.
| Decision Date | 10 June 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 20020877.,20020877. |
| Citation | 2005 UT 34,114 P.3d 585 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Scott Joseph MERRILL, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Mark L. Shurtleff, Att'y Gen., Karen A. Klucznik, Asst. Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, David A. Blackwell, W. Brent Langston, Castle Dale, for plaintiff.
Stephen R. McCaughey, Salt Lake City, for defendant.
¶ 1 This case presents the questions of whether Utah Code section 77-13-6(2)(b) creates a jurisdictional bar to a criminal defendant's withdrawal of a guilty plea, and whether the thirty-day limitation in which a plea must be withdrawn is unconstitutional. We hold that the bar is jurisdictional and constitutionally permissible.
¶ 2 On October 29, 1998, Scott Joseph Merrill hid among rocks overlooking a road upon which Charles Watterson, an employee of Emery County, was operating a road grader. When Mr. Watterson approached Mr. Merrill's location, Mr. Merrill approached the grader and repeatedly shot Mr. Watterson, killing him. Mr. Merrill then took Mr. Watterson's belongings and left the scene.
¶ 3 Law enforcement officials found thirty-five spent .22 caliber casings in the area of the killing. A firearms expert determined that the casings were from a Ruger 10.22 semiautomatic weapon owned by Mr. Merrill. Investigators also found footprints around Mr. Watterson's vehicle that were consistent with the tread pattern of Mr. Merrill's boots.
¶ 4 The Emery County Sheriff's Office uncovered a camp between Green River and the crime scene where some of Mr. Merrill's personal belongings were found. Further investigation revealed that Mr. Merrill had arrived in Green River via an eastbound Amtrak train and spent a few nights camping in the desert. After shooting Mr. Watterson, Mr. Merrill proceeded to a Green River motel where he was discovered and taken into custody.
¶ 5 Mr. Merrill was initially charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, and criminal mischief, each of which was accompanied by a firearm enhancement. On February 17, 2000, Mr. Merrill pleaded "no contest" to the charge of aggravated murder. In exchange for Mr. Merrill's plea, the State agreed to dismiss the charges of aggravated robbery and criminal mischief, together with all three firearm enhancements. The State further agreed not to seek the death penalty or the sentence of life in prison without parole and to recommend a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
¶ 6 In a "no contest" statement filed with the court as part of his plea entry, Mr. Merrill acknowledged that he intentionally shot and killed Mr. Watterson and took personal property from him. Mr. Merrill indicated that he acted on a commandment from God to kill Mr. Watterson, believing this commandment to supersede Utah law. Mr. Merrill also informed the court that he believed he was mentally competent to enter his plea and that, although he was taking the prescription drug Zoloft at the time, the medicine did not prevent him from knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily entering the plea.
¶ 7 Mr. Merrill was informed by the court that he had thirty days after the date of disposition to move to withdraw the plea. The district court then conducted a plea colloquy with Mr. Merrill and entered a plea of guilty to aggravated murder pursuant to Utah Code section 77-13-2(3).
¶ 8 Nancy Beth Cohn, Ph.D., performed a psychological assessment of Mr. Merrill. She concluded that Mr. Merrill was mentally ill, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, possibly bipolar type. Dr. Cohn indicated that Mr. Merrill had been "floridly psychotic" prior to the crime. At the plea and sentencing hearing, Dr. Cohn testified that Mr. Merrill was competent to enter into the plea agreement because the "symptoms of his mental illness" were "in substantial remission."
¶ 9 In November 2000, Mr. Merrill filed a petition for post-conviction relief. As grounds for his petition, Mr. Merrill alleged ineffective assistance of counsel and that his psychiatric medicine, Zoloft, had caused him to experience religious delusions that resulted in his entering his plea without adequate comprehension of what he was doing.
¶ 10 The district court replaced Mr. Merrill's counsel, who, in April 2001, supplemented the post-conviction relief petition with a motion to withdraw Mr. Merrill's guilty plea. This motion was later amended to allege that Mr. Merrill had not knowingly or voluntarily entered the plea owing to the effects of his medicine.
¶ 11 Mr. Merrill's counsel attributed the significant lapse in time between the entry of Mr. Merrill's plea and his motion to withdraw it to Mr. Merrill's recent discovery of Zoloft's side effects. Relying on Utah Code section 77-13-6(2)(b), which states that all motions to withdraw a guilty plea must be filed within thirty days, Utah Code Ann. § 77-13-6(2)(b) (1999) (amended 2003 & 2004), the district court dismissed Mr. Merrill's motion to withdraw the plea as untimely and concluded that the motion's untimeliness left the court without jurisdiction to consider its merits. This appeal followed. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78-2-2(3)(i) (2004).
¶ 12 We review the district court's interpretation of Utah Code section 77-13-6(2)(b) for correctness, affording no deference to its legal conclusions. State v. Ostler, 2001 UT 68, ¶ 5, 31 P.3d 528.
¶ 13 Mr. Merrill argues that the plain language of the statute, its legislative history, and case law addressing similar statutes support the proposition that the time limit to withdraw a guilty plea imposed by Utah Code section 77-13-6(2)(b) is directory only, creating no jurisdictional bar to the consideration of his motion. At the time of Mr. Merrill's plea and motion to withdraw, section 77-13-6 read:
Utah Code Ann. § 77-13-6 (1999) (amended 2003 & 2004).1
¶ 14 Although we have not unequivocally stated that the thirty-day filing requirement of section 77-13-6(2)(b) imposes a jurisdictional bar to late-filed requests to withdraw pleas, we have strongly implied as much.
¶ 15 We first addressed this issue in State v. Abeyta, 852 P.2d 993 (Utah 1993) (per curiam). Before the thirty-day limit to withdraw a guilty plea was added to Utah Code section 77-13-6, Mr. Abeyta pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery. Id. at 994; see Utah Code Ann. § 77-13-6 (1980). By the time Mr. Abeyta moved to withdraw his plea, the thirty-day time limit had been codified, see Utah Code Ann. § 77-13-6 (1989), and more than thirty days had passed from the date on which he entered his plea. Abeyta, 852 P.2d at 994. We concluded that the statutory amendment was substantive and not procedural and held that the thirty-day limit could not be applied retroactively to bar Mr. Abeyta's motion. Id. at 995. In so holding, we implied that a defendant's failure to withdraw a guilty plea within thirty days from the date on which he entered it would have jurisdictional consequences when we stated that Id.
¶ 16 Later, in State v. Ostler, 2001 UT 68, 31 P.3d 528, we acknowledged and resolved a statutory ambiguity concerning which procedural event triggered the thirty-day plea withdrawal window.2 We held that the statutory description of the period available to withdraw a plea, "30 days after the entry of the plea," Utah Code Ann. § 77-13-6(2)(b) (1999), referred to the date of entry of final judgment and not to the date of the plea colloquy. Ostler, 2001 UT 68 at ¶ 11, 31 P.3d 528. The legislative history of the statute anchored most of this holding. Id. at ¶ 9. We reinforced our reasoning, however, with the observation that to start the time for moving to withdraw a plea from the time the district court accepted a plea could "deprive the district court of the power to review a plea before it enters a judgment of conviction and sentence," an outcome we found to be unreasonably unfair. Id. at ¶ 10. Contributing to the unfairness of this alternative interpretation was our assumption, culled from the dictum in Abeyta, that failure to bring a timely motion to withdraw a guilty plea had jurisdictional consequences. Id.
¶ 17 State v. Reyes, 2002 UT 13, 40 P.3d 630, completed the evolution of our analysis of the thirty-day filing period with the express recognition of its jurisdictional status as an integral part of the holding. Moreover, we accorded increased veneration to our earlier commentaries on the jurisdictional status of the thirty-day filing window of section 77-13-6(2)(b), elevating them from dicta to holdings. Id. at ¶ 3. When we explained why we were turning away Mr. Reyes's motion to withdraw his plea, we stated:
We decline to address this issue because we do not have jurisdiction to address it. Section 77-13-6 of the Utah Code was amended in 1989 to require a defendant to file a motion to withdraw a guilty plea within thirty days after the entry of the plea. Utah Code Ann. § 77-13-6 (1999). We have held that failure to do so extinguishes a defendant's right to challenge the validity of the guilty plea on appeal. See State v. Abeyta, 852 P.2d 993, 995 (Utah 1993) (); State v. Ostler, 2001 UT 68, ¶ 10, 31 P.3d...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Ott
...of the guilty plea on appeal.’ ” Grimmett, 2007 UT 11, ¶ 8, 152 P.3d 306 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); State v. Merrill, 2005 UT 34, ¶¶ 13–20, 114 P.3d 585 (addressing jurisdictional nature of section 77–13–6(2)(b) prior to significant 2003 amendment). In Rhinehart, we f......
-
State v. Rettig
...shall be pursued" under the PCRA. UTAH CODE§ 77-13-6(2)(c). And our cases have characterized this effect as "jurisdictional." See State v. Merrill , 2005 UT 34, ¶ 20, 114 P.3d 585 ( section 77-13-6(2)(b) is "jurisdictional"); State v. Reyes , 2002 UT 13, ¶ 3, 40 P.3d 630 (same).¶43 But that......
-
State v. Drej, 2010 UT 35 (Utah 5/14/2010)
...operation of laws never intersect and there is no need to further inquire into the permissibility of the statute. Id.; see also Merrill, 2005 UT 34, ¶ 34 (stating "the creation of classes and the discrimination among them is inherent to all laws" but the law is unconstitutional only if it i......
-
Meza v. State
...to a defendant in which he may assert defects in his guilty plea would certainly violate constitutional due process guarantees.” State v. Merrill, 2005 UT 34, ¶ 29, 114 P.3d 585. Mr. Meza's need for a mechanism to assert a defect in his guilty plea and the PCRA's failure to provide such a m......