Turner v. State, No. 49S02-9111-PC-875

• Docket Nº: No. 49S02-9111-PC-875
• Citation: 580 N.E.2d 665
• Case Date: November 04, 1991
• Court: Supreme Court of Indiana

Page 665

580 N.E.2d 665 Roy TURNER, Appellant (Petitioner Below),
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Respondent Below). No. 49S02-9111-PC-875. Supreme Court of Indiana. Nov. 4, 1991.

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Susan K. Carpenter, Public Defender, John Pinnow, Deputy Public Defender, Indianapolis, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Mary Dreyer, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

The question is whether a 1965 guilty plea is subject to collateral attack on the basis that the record presently available does not satisfy the factual basis requirements of the 1973 statute on guilty pleas. We hold it is not.

In 1965, Roy Turner was charged with the felony of theft for stealing a car. He pled guilty as charged and received a six-month sentence.

In 1987, Turner filed a petition for post-conviction relief challenging the voluntariness of his guilty plea and the effectiveness of his lawyer. The post-conviction court held a hearing, after which it denied the petition. Turner appealed, and a divided Court of Appeals reversed. It held that a factual basis had not been established to justify acceptance of Turner's guilty plea by the trial court. Turner v. State (1991), Ind.App., 568 N.E.2d 1046. The State seeks transfer, contending that the Court of Appeals misinterpreted the law on guilty pleas as it existed in 1965. We agree.

I. Facts of the Case

At Turner's guilty plea hearing on December 22, 1965, the State presented evidence as follows. Kenneth Burton testified that on the evening of September 12, 1965, he drove his father's Chevrolet to an Indianapolis bowling alley. He left the car in the parking lot at 8:30 p.m., and discovered it missing at about 9:15 p.m. He further testified that he had never seen Turner before, nor given him permission to use the car. Kenneth Burton's father, Raymond Burton, then testified that he owned the car. The prosecutor also presented the investigating officer, Sergeant White, who testified that he interrogated Turner on October 16, 1965. White said that Turner gave him a statement, which was reduced to writing. The prosecutor did not pose any further questions about what Turner told Sergeant White. Instead, he offered the transcribed statement into evidence as State's Exhibit One. It was admitted without objection and examined by the court. At the conclusion of the State's presentation, Turner took the stand. Under questioning by his own attorney, Turner said the police officer's testimony was true, and that the statement given to Sergeant White bore his signature. The trial court then sentenced Turner to 180 days on the State Farm.

More than twenty years later, after being adjudged an habitual offender, Turner petitioned for post-conviction relief. While the transcript was being prepared, it was discovered that State's Exhibit One (Turner's statement) could not be located, despite all due diligence. The Court of Appeals concluded that without the statement, there is no evidence connecting Turner to the crime of theft. It reversed the judgment of the post-conviction court for want of a factual basis and remanded with instructions to grant post-conviction relief.

II. Guilty Pleas Prior to 1973

As Judge Buchanan noted in his dissent, Turner's plea was entered prior to the 1973

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effective date of Indiana Code 35-4.1-1-4(b) [now Ind.Code 35-35-1-3(b) ], which first established a statutory requirement that a factual basis be demonstrated before a guilty plea is accepted. Turner, 568 N.E.2d at 1050 (Buchanan, J., dissenting). Of course, even before the enactment of that statute, this Court adopted a number of safeguards to ensure that guilty pleas were entered voluntarily and intelligently. Two cases in particular, Harshman v. State (1953), 232 Ind. 618, 115 N.E.2d 501, and Hathaway v. State (1968), 251 Ind. 374, 241 N.E.2d 240, illustrate the state of the law regarding guilty pleas before legislative action drew a brighter line.

In Harshman, this Court allowed the prisoner to withdraw his plea when the record of his guilty plea hearing showed he could not remember whether he took the vehicle he was accused of taking, and the record of that hearing did not contain any other evidence of his guilt. The Court said:

As we view it, a plea of guilty tendered by one who in the same breath protests his innocence, or declares he actually does not know whether or not he is guilty, is no plea at all. Certainly it is not a sufficient plea upon which to base a judgment of conviction. No plea of guilty should be accepted when it appears to be doubtful whether it is being intelligently and understandingly made, or when it appears that, for any reason, the plea is wholly inconsistent with the realities of the situation. We may add parenthetically that so far as the record before us discloses, no evidence whatever pointing to appellant's guilt was adduced, either before, during or after the entry of the plea. Harshman, 232 Ind. at 621, 115 N.E.2d at 502.

Harshman did not, as the Court of Appeals majority implied, create a factual basis requirement for all guilty pleas taken in this state since 1953. Harshman did establish a rule that a court could not accept a guilty plea from a defendant who had no memory of the crime unless there was additional evidence supporting the defendant's guilt. This is the law today concerning pleas from defendants who claim an inability to recall committing their crimes. Gibson v. State (1986), Ind., 490 N.E.2d 297.

Fifteen years later, Hathaway presented this Court with a different question: Is a defendant who admitted he committed the charged crime and never claimed a lack of memory entitled later to withdraw his plea because the State did not present any other evidence that he committed the crime? The Court answered this question in the negative. We held that "a plea of guilty ... has been held sufficient foundation upon which to rest a judgment ... (citations omitted). ¹ Any arguments as to the sufficiency of evidence are not relevant. When the appellant chose to plead guilty and to waive a trial he also chose to waive the protection of having...