Turner v. State
| Decision Date | 10 March 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 79A04-0507-CR-370.,79A04-0507-CR-370. |
| Parties | Franklin D. TURNER, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Harold E. Amstutz, Lafayette, for Appellant.
Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Matthew D. Fisher, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, for Appellee.
Franklin Turner pleaded guilty to Dealing in Cocaine, as a Class A felony. He presents a single issue for our review, namely, whether the trial court should have granted his motion to withdraw his guilty plea because it was necessary to correct a manifest injustice. We hold that because Turner's case was not yet final, and he has a credible defense under the new constitutional rule announced in Litchfield v. State, 824 N.E.2d 356 (Ind. 2005), his motion should have been granted.
We reverse and remand.1
On August 21, 2003, a police officer in Tippecanoe County filed an affidavit for a search warrant, in which he described possible drug activity at 676 Harrison Circle in Dayton. The officer stated that the Dayton Town Marshall, ("Town Marshall"), had contacted him and advised him that the Town Marshall had received some complaints that there might be drug dealing at that residence. Based on that information, the officer and a detective with the Lafayette Police Department went to the residence and noticed that trash bags had been left near the curb for pickup. The officers retrieved four white trash bags, examined their contents, and discovered several marijuana cigarettes and stems that appeared to be from marijuana plants.
One week later, the officers returned and found more trash bags at the curb. Once again, they examined the contents of the bags and found more stems from marijuana plants. Based on what they had discovered in the trash bags, the officers sought a search warrant for the residence. The trial court granted the warrant and officers from the Lafayette Police Department executed it. Once inside the residence, they discovered Turner. Turner acknowledged that he lived there and stated that "there was no more marijuana as it had all been used." Appellant's App. at 12. In the garage, the officers discovered cocaine. The officers arrested Turner, and the State charged him with dealing in cocaine, as a Class A felony; possession of cocaine, as a Class A felony; possession of marijuana, as a Class A misdemeanor; possession of paraphernalia, as a Class A misdemeanor; maintaining a common nuisance, as a Class D felony; and possession of a controlled substance, as a Class C felony.
On August 9, 2004, Turner pleaded guilty to dealing in cocaine, as a Class A felony. The trial court took his plea under advisement and scheduled a sentencing hearing. Before the sentencing hearing, Turner filed a motion to suppress and a motion to withdraw his guilty plea because, according to Turner, new case law provided him with a credible defense that was unavailable at the time he had entered his guilty plea. Specifically, he alleged in his motions that the Indiana Supreme Court's recent opinion in Litchfield v. State, 824 N.E.2d 356 (Ind.2005), renders the search of his home unconstitutional and the evidence seized inadmissible. Thus, Turner sought to withdraw his guilty plea in order to challenge the constitutionality of the police action in his case.
The trial court conducted a hearing on Turner's motion to withdraw his guilty plea and denied that motion. At the sentencing hearing, the trial court then accepted Turner's guilty plea and identified one aggravating factor, the nature and circumstances of the crime, and two mitigating factors, namely, that Turner had no prior criminal history and has a strong and supportive family. The trial court sentenced Turner to twenty-five years, with five years suspended. This appeal ensued.
Turner contends that the trial court should have granted his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. In particular, he maintains that when he filed his motion the trial court had not accepted his plea, nor had it entered judgment of conviction. Likewise, he alleges that withdrawal of his plea is necessary to correct a manifest injustice because a new constitutional rule provides a credible defense against the admissibility of evidence in the State's case against him.
Indiana Code Section 35-35-1-4(b) states the applicable standard when a defendant pleads guilty pursuant to an agreement with the State and then requests to withdraw the plea:
After entry of a plea of guilty ..., but before imposition of sentence, the court may allow the defendant by motion to withdraw his plea ... for any fair and just reason unless the state has been substantially prejudiced by reliance upon the defendant's plea.... The ruling of the court on the motion shall be reviewable on appeal only for an abuse of discretion. However, the court shall allow the defendant to withdraw his plea... whenever the defendant proves that withdrawal of the plea is necessary to correct a manifest injustice.
Our appellate courts have interpreted this statute to require a trial court to grant such a request:
only if the defendant proves that withdrawal of the plea "is necessary to correct a manifest injustice." The court must deny a motion to withdraw a guilty plea if the withdrawal would result in substantial prejudice to the State. Except under these polar circumstances, disposition of the petition is at the discretion of the trial court.
Weatherford v. State, 697 N.E.2d 32, 34 (Ind.1998) (citation omitted).
"Manifest injustice" and "substantial prejudice" are necessarily imprecise standards, and an appellant seeking to overturn a trial court's decision has faced a high hurdle under the current statute and its predecessors. Id. The trial court's ruling on a motion to withdraw a guilty plea arrives in our appellate courts with a presumption in favor of the ruling. Id. One who appeals an adverse decision on a motion to withdraw must therefore prove the trial court abused its discretion by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. We will not disturb the court's ruling where it was based on conflicting evidence. Id.
First, Turner claims that the trial court should have granted his motion to withdraw his guilty plea because at the time he filed his motion the court had not yet accepted the plea. Although Turner correctly notes that he filed his motion to withdraw before the trial court formally "accepted" his plea, that is not the dispositive factor in determining whether the court should have granted his motion. Rather, again, the Indiana Code provides:
After entry of a plea of guilty ... but before imposition of sentence, the court may allow the defendant by motion to withdraw his plea of guilty ... for any fair and just reason unless the [S]tate has been substantially prejudiced by reliance upon the defendant's plea.
Ind.Code § 35-35-1-4(b) (emphases added). The "entry" of a guilty plea and the court's subsequent "acceptance" of that plea are two distinct stages of the plea process. Indeed, our supreme court has recognized for over two decades that "court permission is required to withdraw a guilty plea, even when the plea has not been accepted and the withdrawal request is based upon a protestation of innocence." Carter v. State, 739 N.E.2d 126, 131 (Ind. 2000) (citing Owens v. State, 426 N.E.2d 372, 375 (Ind.1981)). Thus, Turner's claim that the trial court abused its discretion when it denied his motion to withdraw his guilty plea because the court had not yet accepted his plea is misplaced.
Next, Turner maintains that granting his motion to withdraw his guilty plea is necessary to correct a manifest injustice because after he had entered his plea, our supreme court decided Litchfield, which Turner claims established a credible defense that was previously unavailable. Specifically, Turner contends that the holding in Litchfield renders the search of his home unconstitutional. Turner's case was not yet final when our supreme court decided Litchfield. See Smylie v. State, 823 N.E.2d 679, 687 (Ind.2005), cert denied. And the new rule enunciated in Litchfield constitutes a "clear break" with the past. Id. Thus, we will proceed to the substance of Turner's motion to withdraw his guilty plea.
In Moran v. State, 644 N.E.2d 536 (Ind. 1994), our supreme court held that police conduct was not unreasonable under Article I, Section 11 where the police did not trespass or disturb the neighborhood when they seized the contents of the defendants' garbage cans, which had been placed at the curtilage for removal. The court concluded that "one who places trash bags for collection intends for them to be taken up, and is pleased when that occurs," and that the officers conducted themselves in a similar manner to trash collectors and did not cause a disturbance. Id. at 541.
Recently, however, in Litchfield our supreme court enunciated a new trash search rule. As noted above, under Moran, law enforcement officers were free to search curbside trash willy-nilly, and the fruits of those searches could be utilized to provide probable cause for a warrant. But under Litchfield, law enforcement officers may only search curbside trash if they have an articulable, individualized suspicion that the trash may contain evidence of criminal conduct.
Specifically, the court in Litchfield held that "a search of trash recovered from the place where it is left for collection is permissible under the Indiana Constitution, but only if the investigating officials have an articulable basis justifying reasonable suspicion that the subjects of the search have engaged in violations of law that might reasonably lead to evidence in the trash." Id. at 357. The court explained, "We believe a requirement of articulable individualized suspicion, essentially the same as is required for a `Terry stop' of an automobile,...
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