STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. JASON GENE WEITZEL, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 16-1112
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
May 3, 2017
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Floyd County, Peter B. Newell, District Associate Judge.
David A. Kuehner of Eggert, Erb, Mulcahy & Kuehner, P.L.L.C., Charles City, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Jean C. Pettinger, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered En Banc.
MCDONALD, Judge.
In State v. Fisher, 877 N.W.2d 676, 686 n.6 (Iowa 2016), the supreme court held actual compliance with
I.
Jason Weitzel pleaded guilty to and was convicted of domestic-abuse assault, in violation of
Weitzel was represented by counsel during the plea proceeding. During the plea proceeding, the district court informed Weitzel of the minimum and maximum fines applicable to each offense. The district court also determined Weitzel understood the minimum and maximum fines applicable to each offense. The district court did not inform Weitzel of the criminal surcharge penalty applicable to each offense.
II.
On appeal, Weitzel seeks to vacate his convictions on the ground the plea proceeding was inadequate. Weitzel did not file a motion in arrest of judgment to challenge the adequacy of the plea proceeding. Typically, “[a] defendant‘s failure to challenge the adequacy of a guilty plea proceeding by motion in arrest of judgment shall preclude the defendant‘s right to assert such challenge on appeal.”
We conclude Weitzel is not barred from challenging the adequacy of his plea proceeding on direct appeal. The State concedes the district court did not advise the defendant as required by
III.
We begin by clarifying the nature of the claim presented. Due process requires a guilty plea be voluntary. See State v. Loye, 670 N.W.2d 141, 150 (Iowa 2003). “To be truly voluntary, the plea must not only be free from compulsion, but must also be knowing and intelligent.” Id. at 151. Due process requires the defendant to have an understanding of “the constitutional protections that he gives up by pleading guilty, . . . ‘the nature of the crime with which he is charged,’ and the potential penalties.” Id. (citation omitted).
In McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459 (1969), the Supreme Court explained the prophylactic purpose of the parallel federal rule of criminal procedure:
First, although the procedure embodied in Rule 11 has not been held to be constitutionally mandated, it is designed to assist the district judge in making the constitutionally required determination that a defendant‘s guilty plea is truly voluntary. Second, the Rule is intended to produce a complete record at the time the plea is entered of the factors relevant to this voluntariness determination. Thus, the more meticulously the Rule is adhered to, the more it tends to discourage, or at least to enable more expeditious disposition of, the numerous and often frivolous post-conviction attacks on the constitutional validity of guilty pleas.
. . . .
These two purposes have their genesis in the nature of a guilty plea. A defendant who enters such a plea simultaneously waives several constitutional rights, including his privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, his right to trial by jury, and his right to confront his accusers. For this waiver to be valid under the Due Process Clause, it must be “an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.” Consequently, if a defendant‘s guilty plea is not equally voluntary and knowing, it has been obtained in violation of due process and is therefore void.
. . . .
To the extent that the district judge thus exposes the defendant‘s state of mind on the record through personal interrogation, he not only facilitates his own determination of a guilty plea‘s voluntariness, but he also facilitates that determination in any subsequent post-conviction proceeding based upon a claim that the plea was involuntary. Both of these goals are undermined in proportion to the degree the district judge resorts to “assumptions” not based upon recorded responses to his inquiries. For this reason, we reject the Government‘s contention that Rule 11 can be complied with although the district judge does not personally inquire whether the defendant understood the nature of the charge.
McCarthy, 394 U.S. at 465-67. The same considerations inform our understanding of the purposes of
Although due process concepts are protected by the rule, a due process challenge to a guilty plea is separate and distinct from a rule-based challenge to the adequacy of a plea proceeding. A due process claim challenges whether the guilty plea was actually voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently made. See State v. Finney, 834 N.W.2d 46, 58 (Iowa 2013) (explaining the difference between a due process challenge to a guilty plea and a challenge to the adequacy of the plea proceeding). The object of the inquiry is the defendant‘s subjective understanding of the plea proceeding. Id. This requires the “court to delve into the accused‘s state of mind.” Id. In contrast, a challenge to the adequacy of the plea proceeding as required by
Because the claims are separate and distinct, it is entirely possible a guilty plea will be voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently made although not in compliance with
With that background, the questions material to the resolution of the issue presented in this case are what is the specific claim asserted; and what relief, if any, is the defendant entitled to receive upon establishing the claim. We now turn to these questions.
IV.
A.
The claim presented in this appeal is a rule-based claim. Specifically, whether the guilty plea proceeding complied with
The court may refuse to accept a plea of guilty, and shall not accept a plea of guilty without first determining that the plea is made voluntarily and intelligently and has a factual basis. Before accepting a plea of guilty, the court must address the defendant personally in open court and inform the defendant of, and determine that the defendant understands, the following:
. . . .
(2) The mandatory minimum punishment, if any, and the maximum possible punishment provided by the statute defining the offense to which the plea is offered.
Although actual compliance with the rule is preferred, substantial compliance is acceptable. The substantial compliance standard focuses on the conduct of the district court during the plea proceeding. The objective is fixed, but its application is flexible. We ask whether the record establishes the district court conveyed the required information to the defendant such that it could be said the defendant understood the information. See State v. Meron, 675 N.W.2d 537, 544 (Iowa 2004) (“Substantial compliance requires that the essence of each requirement of the rule be expressed to allow the court to perform its important role in each case.“); see also Ballard, 423 N.E.2d at 120 (“Rather, the focus, upon review, is whether the record shows that the trial court explained or referred to the right in a manner reasonably intelligible to that defendant.“).
At least two of our cases have applied some sort of harmless error or material inducement standard to determine whether the plea colloquy was in substantial compliance with the
To the extent either Howell or Peterson could be interpreted to mean the district court substantially complied with
Instead, we would say there was a failure to disclose but, perhaps, there was no remedy for the purchaser on the facts presented. The same concepts apply here. Substantial compliance focuses on whether the seller (the district court) adequately disclosed the leaky basement (
To the extent the dissent contends there was substantial compliance because the district court‘s omission of information was not a material inducement to the plea or was otherwise harmless, the dissent perpetuates the analytical error in Howell and Peterson. The dissent‘s reliance on federal precedent in support of its argument exposes the error. As noted above, McCarthy drew a distinction between the question of whether the district court complied with the federal rule and whether there should be a remedy for the failure to comply with the federal rule. At the time McCarthy was decided, the
When we turn our focus to the conduct of the district court, in light of the broad, prophylactic nature of the rule, we cannot conclude the district court substantially complied with
The dissent seems to contend the district court‘s disclosure of information regarding the fines associated with each offense provided enough information to the defendant regarding the financial consequences of the plea, generally, to satisfy the substantial compliance standard. The dissent states, “What needs to be communicated is how much money the defendant may owe to the government as a result of pleading guilty.” The contention fails for several reasons. First, Fisher specifically required disclosure of the applicable chapter 911 surcharges independent of information regarding the fines. 877 N.W.2d at 685. To the extent one could conclude the wholesale failure to mention the additional criminal penalty could constitute substantial compliance with the
The State concedes “Hoxsey was not specifically informed the surcharge amount could be thirty-five percent of the fine imposed” but asks the court to “find substantial compliance based on the plea form‘s general reference to costs and surcharge.” We are not persuaded the general reference to surcharges amounted to substantial compliance. The court was obligated to inform Hoxsey of the minimum fine. The plea form identified the number as $625. This was not the minimum fine. With the thirty-five-percent surcharge, the minimum fine would have been $843.75.
State v. Hoxsey, No. 16-1043, 2017 WL 510983, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 8, 2017) (citations omitted).
In sum, we conclude the district court failed to substantially comply with
B.
Our conclusion the plea proceeding in this case failed to substantially comply with
Having decided that the Rule has not been complied with, we must also determine the effect of that noncompliance an issue that has engendered a sharp difference of opinion among the courts of appeals. In Heiden v. United States, 353 F.2d 53 (1965), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that when the district court does not comply fully with Rule 11 the defendant‘s guilty plea must be set aside and his case remanded for another hearing at which he may plead anew. Other courts of appeals, however, have consistently rejected this holding, either expressly or tacitly.
We are persuaded that the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has adopted the better rule. From the defendant‘s perspective, the efficacy of shifting the burden of proof to the Government at a later voluntariness hearing is questionable. In meeting its burden, the Government will undoubtedly rely upon the defendant‘s statement that he desired to plead guilty and frequently a statement that the plea was not induced by any threats or promises. This prima facie case for voluntariness is likely to be treated as irrebuttable in cases such as this one, where the defendant‘s reply is limited to his own plaintive allegations that he did not understand the nature of the charge and therefore failed to assert a valid defense or to limit his guilty plea only to a lesser included offense. No matter how true these allegations may be, rarely, if ever, can a defendant corroborate them in a post-plea voluntariness hearing.
Rule 11 is designed to eliminate any need to resort to a later fact-finding proceeding “in this highly subjective area.” The Rule contemplates that disputes as to the understanding of the
defendant and the voluntariness of his action are to be eliminated at the outset. As the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit explained in discussing what it termed the “persuasive rationale” of Heiden: “When the ascertainment is subsequently made, greater uncertainty is bound to exist since in the resolution of disputed contentions problems of credibility and of reliability of memory cannot be avoided. There is no adequate substitute for demonstrating in the record at the time the plea is entered the defendant‘s understanding of the nature of the charge against him.”
. . . .
On the other hand, had the District Court scrupulously complied with Rule 11, there would be no need for such speculation. At the time the plea was entered, petitioner‘s own replies to the court‘s inquiries might well have attested to his understanding of the essential elements of the crime charged, including the requirement of specific intent, and to his knowledge of the acts which formed the basis for the charge. Otherwise, it would be apparent to the court that the plea could not be accepted. Similarly, it follows that, if the record had been developed properly, and if it demonstrated that petitioner entered his plea freely and intelligently, his subsequent references to neglect and inadvertence could have been summarily dismissed as nothing more than overzealous supplications for leniency.
We thus conclude that prejudice inheres in a failure to comply with Rule 11, for noncompliance deprives the defendant of the Rule‘s procedural safeguards that are designed to facilitate a more accurate determination of the voluntariness of his plea. Our holding that a defendant whose plea has been accepted in violation of Rule 11 should be afforded the opportunity to plead anew not only will insure that every accused is afforded those procedural safeguards, but also will help reduce the great waste of judicial resources required to process the frivolous attacks on guilty plea convictions that are encouraged, and are more difficult to dispose of, when the original record is inadequate. It is, therefore, not too much to require that, before sentencing defendants to years of imprisonment, district judges take the few minutes necessary to inform them of their rights and to determine whether they understand the action they are taking.
McCarthy, 394 U.S. at 468-72. McCarthy is not controlling for two reasons. First, it was an interpretation of the
Peterson and Howell could be interpreted to adopt a material-inducement or harmless-error standard with respect to the question of remedy. However, Peterson and Howell fail to distinguish between a due process claim—which focuses on the defendant‘s subjective understanding and whether the plea was actually voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently made—and a rule-based claim—which focuses on the adequacy of the plea colloquy. In blurring that line, the cases rely on Stovall v. State, 340 N.W.2d 265, 267 (Iowa 1983), and State v. West, 326 N.W.2d 316, 317 (Iowa 1982). In Stovall, the district court provided incorrect information to the defendant regarding parole eligibility. This was information the district court was not required to provide pursuant to
To the extent either Peterson or Howell could be interpreted to adopt a material-inducement or harmless-error rule with respect to violations of
Second, controlling cases dictate that the required remedy for the district court‘s failure to substantially comply with
Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 8(2)(b) requires the judge, before accepting a plea of guilty, to determine that the plea was made voluntarily and intelligently. The United States Constitution requires that to be truly voluntary the plea must be made knowingly and intelligently. The position urged by the State for our adoption violates these principles and requirements. It leaves the defendant informed of statutory words, thus partially informed, but uninformed of the true maximum possible punishment of twenty years imprisonment coming from consecutive sentences. In essence, defendant is uninformed and unenlightened. The letter of the law and the spirit of the law requiring that the guilty plea be made voluntarily and intelligently, mandated by Rule 8 and the Due
Process Clause of the United States Constitution have not been satisfied.
A trial court could satisfy the Rule 8 and constitutional requirements on this issue with a few words explaining the difference between consecutive and concurrent sentences. This colloquy between the judge and the defendant could take less than one minute. It would comply with the requirements of our laws, in spirit and in truth. And, it would not unduly burden our courts.
White, 587 N.W.2d at 246 (citation omitted).
Similarly, in Loye, the district court failed to inform the defendant of the potential punishments, including fines. The State contended the guilty pleas and convictions need not be vacated because the defendant had actual knowledge of the punishments based on defense counsel‘s discussion of the same with the defendant. In addition, the defendant had actual knowledge of all material information because of the extensive proceedings related to the defendant‘s admission into drug court. The Loye court rejected the conclusion that the defendant‘s actual knowledge of the punishments was relevant, stating:
it does not relieve the [district] court of its obligation to ensure the defendant‘s knowledge and understanding of the nature of the charges and the potential punishments. Nor is the court‘s obligation lessened because the defendant‘s attorney has discussed the same matters with the accused in preparation for the plea hearing.
Loye, 670 N.W.2d at 153. The Loye court focused on the district court‘s conduct, and not the harm to the defendant.
The dissent attempts to distinguish White and Loye on the ground those cases involved misinformation regarding “lengthy prison sentences.” Nothing in Fisher makes a distinction between the remedies available to a defendant based on the nature of the penal consequences at issue. Nothing in the plain language of the rule makes a distinction between the remedies available to a defendant based on the nature of the penal consequences at issue. More important, the dissent‘s distinction is immaterial. The material fact in Loye was not the nature of the penal consequences not addressed during the plea colloquy; the material fact was the defendant had actual knowledge of the penal consequences of the guilty plea based on discussions with counsel. See Loye, 670 N.W.2d at 153. Loye thus stands for the proposition that even when the defendant has actual knowledge of the penal consequences—i.e., the omissions were harmless, as a matter of law, because the defendant actually knew the omitted information—the district court‘s failure to substantially comply with
Finally, Fisher also set forth the required remedy upon a finding the district court failed to substantially comply with
Third, the remedy required by White, Loye, and Fisher is dictated by the text of the rule.
financial penalty. The failure to disclose the surcharge means the defendant was not informed of the mandatory minimum financial penalty or the maximum possible financial penalty. See Fisher, 877 N.W.2d at 686 (noting the failure to disclose the surcharge means the minimum financial punishment was undisclosed); Hoxsey, 2017 WL 510983, at *1 (same). The failure to disclose the surcharge, by necessity, also means the district court could not and did not make the required determinations prior to accepting the plea.
Finally, we note the material-inducement standard is inconsistent with fundamental rule-of-law principles. See State v. Gaskins, 866 N.W.2d 1, 40 (Iowa 2015) (stating rule-of-law values include “consistency and equal treatment, stability, and predictability at any one time and over time“); State v. Campbell, No. 15-1772, 2017 WL 706208, at *8-9 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 22, 2017) (explaining we should prefer legal rules capable of consistent application). A material-inducement standard seems incapable of consistent application on appeal. The result of any particular case would be largely dependent upon the appellate panel drawn. Without a record regarding the defendant‘s subjective motivations for entering into a guilty plea, it is unclear how this court on direct appeal would be able to determine, the defendant was not at all motivated by the financial consequences of the plea. It would be utter speculation to conclude one defendant could not have cared as a matter of law because he received charging concessions but another defendant might have cared as a matter of law because he received a lesser charging concession. Where is the line to be drawn? How is the line to be drawn with no record regarding the defendant‘s subjective intent? McCarthy, White, Loye, and Fisher resolve this problem by adopting a bright-line rule—if the district court failed to substantially comply with
The dissent‘s attempt to distinguish Fisher on the question of remedy highlights the speculative nature of the endeavor. The dissent concedes the Fisher court did not discuss or even mention materiality, which would seem to indicate the Fisher court rejected the harmless-error approach and applied the bright line rule required by White and Loye. The dissent goes on to argue, however, the Fisher court must have considered materiality because losing one‘s driving privileges was a “significant consideration” for the defendant. However, the dissent also concludes it would not be a significant consideration if the case involved other offenses that required incarceration. It is unclear on what basis the dissent makes this distinction. Would the punishment be material if the charging concession was from a class D felony to an aggravated misdemeanor? From an aggravated misdemeanor to a serious misdemeanor? From two class D felonies to a single class D felony and an aggravated misdemeanor? From two class D felonies to a single misdemeanor? Would it matter if the plea agreement called for suspended sentences? The permutations are endless. Perhaps there are easy cases on either end of the curve, but there are substantially more in the mushy middle incapable of consistent resolution. Unless, of course, the dissent simply means that the financial penalties associated with a guilty plea are always immaterial as a matter of law. Again, that merely begs the question of why interpret
We note the district court‘s failure to substantially comply with
For the foregoing reasons, we hold the required remedy for the district court‘s failure to substantially comply with
V.
We hold the defendant was not barred from directly contesting the adequacy of the guilty-plea proceeding on direct appeal because he was not informed of the need to file a motion in arrest of judgment. We hold the district court failed to substantially comply with
CONVICTIONS AND SENTENCES VACATED AND REMANDED.
All Judges concur except Mullins, J. who concurs specially and Tabor and Doyle, JJ. who dissents.
MULLINS, Judge. (concurring specially)
I concur in the majority opinion but write separately to emphasize philosophical and practical implications of this case. It goes without saying that our judicial system is an important component in the fabric of our democratic form of government premised on the rule of law. Our courts interpret the law and apply the interpretation to the cases before us. We are governed by constitutions, statutes, rules, and legal precedents. At every jurisdictional level, courts make tough decisions every day that seem harsh to some but are necessary if our society is to be governed by the rule of law. We dismiss cases that are filed a day after a statute of limitations has expired. We dismiss criminal cases that are not tried within speedy-trial deadlines. We find persons guilty of crimes if their actions satisfy the elements of the offense. We revoke probation and send defendants to prison for seemingly minor rule violations. All are premised on the rule of law.
In addition to applying the law, our supreme court writes rules to govern conduct. We sanction parties and lawyers for failing to follow rules. Sometimes we forgive failure to comply if there was substantial compliance or if justice requires a balancing of prejudice to the parties. The point is, we—the courts—decide. That is our job and is required by our oaths of office.
The public expects us to follow the law. They expect us to follow the rules, especially the rules we—the courts—write. Persons charged with crimes expect us to follow the rules. After all, we not only expect them to do so, we are obligated to act responsively if they do not. Those accused of wrongdoing often seem especially aware of violations of rules, even minor ones, by those seeking to enforce the rules. One sees it at home (“But Daddy, you did . . . .“), at school (“But the teacher says . . . .“), at work (“But my supervisor told me . . . .“), on the streets (“But the police officer did . . . .“), and in politics (“But he said he would . . . .“).
Most often, court rules are adopted to address ongoing or recurrent issues;
I am not unmindful of the pressures faced by our trial courts. Heavy caseloads, shortage of support, judicial vacancies, limited resources, ever-present uncertainty of adequate funding, and public scrutiny all take a toll on the courts and pressure us to do more with less. Notwithstanding these realities, the public—one case, every case, at a time—expects us to play by the rules.
We should follow the rules. It is not
TABOR, Judge. (dissenting)
I respectfully dissent. Before accepting Weitzel‘s guilty pleas, the district court substantially complied with the penal-consequences requirement under
Forty years ago, our general assembly enacted what is now
But the Fluhr court could not have imagined today‘s majority decision when announcing its holding. In fact, the Fluhr majority warned against such a result:
This holding should not be construed to mean that every minor omission from the oral colloquy in a guilty plea proceedings should be fatal. As [State v.] Sisco announced, “meaningful compliance,” 169 N.W.2d [542,] 548 [(Iowa 1969)], or “substantial compliance,” Id. at 551, with procedural guidelines for taking guilty pleas is sufficient. Certainly a plea-taking error which raises no doubt as to the voluntariness or factual accuracy of the plea may be properly disregarded, provided the defendant is unable to prove prejudice.
Id. (cautioning against an “exalt [of] formalism at the expense of the societal interest in finality of judgments“).
I. Substantial Compliance Means Plea-Taking Court Must Have Informed Defendant Regarding Essential Penal Consequences.
Because
The question today is whether understating Weitzel‘s potential financial obligation by not factoring in the surcharges mandated by
The majority cites no case where an Iowa appellate court has vacated a defendant‘s convictions based solely on misinformation provided by the district court concerning the financial implications of a plea bargain. The majority contends State v. Hoxsey, No. 16-1043, 2017 WL 510983 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 8, 2017), supports its conclusion because a panel of this court was “not persuaded” that a general reference to surcharges on a guilty plea form amounted to substantial compliance with
The majority also focuses on White and Loye; in both of those cases, the district court failed to accurately inform a defendant about the penalties resulting from a guilty plea, prompting our supreme court to vacate the convictions and allow the defendants to plead anew. But in both White and Loye, the plea-taking court failed to provide accurate information about lengthy prison sentences. See, e.g., White, 587 N.W.2d 240, 246 (Iowa 1998) (finding defendant was “uninformed and unenlightened” about the maximum possible punishment of twenty years imprisonment coming from consecutive sentences); see also Loye, 670 N.W.2d at 152 (chronicling numerous deficiencies in the plea colloquy arising out of a drug-court case, including no information about the penalty for marijuana possession, plus the court‘s mistatement that penalty for third-degree burglary was “five years in the penitentiary or as much as a $7500 fine” when “[i]n fact, the possible penalty was five years imprisonment and a fine of at least $750 and not more than $7500“). White and Loye do not stand for the proposition that all misinformation about penalties—however insignificant—requires a reviewing court to vacate the defendant‘s convictions. If they did, Fisher would not have left unresolved the question “whether failure to disclose the surcharges alone would have meant the plea did not substantially comply with
En route to vacating Weitzel‘s convictions, the majority disavows two unpublished cases of our court—a move seemingly both pointless and rash. In those two cases—Peterson and Howell—panels of our court decided that plea colloquies had substantially complied
II. Rule 2.8(2)(b) Codifies Due-Process Requirements; If Misinformation Given by Plea-Taking Court Is Not Material Inducement for Plea, No Due Process Violation Occurs.
The majority tries to draw a bright line between due-process cases and rule-based cases, relegating Weitzel‘s appeal to the rule-based side of the line. It is true that “the entry of a plea by a defendant has both constitutional and procedural elements that must be addressed to ensure that a plea is entered voluntarily and intelligently.” See State v. Thomas, 659 N.W.2d 217, 220 (Iowa 2003). But our case law defies a clean bifurcation between due-process and rule-based claims. The supreme court has announced that
Moreover, Weitzel‘s own brief alleges that because the
Weitzel received misinformation from the plea-taking court about the financial implications of his guilty pleas. Boone, West, and Stovall dictate that under these circumstances, the reviewing court must decide whether that misinformation was a material inducement for Weitzel‘s decision to plead guilty—or, in other words, whether it rendered his guilty pleas unintelligent or involuntary. Making that decision is not, as the majority suggests, “utter speculation” about a defendant‘s subjective motivations. Rather, it is an objective assessment of materiality. See Material, Black‘s Law Dictionary (7th ed. 1999) (defining as “[o]f such a nature that knowledge of the item would affect a person‘s decision-making process; significant; essential“).
In Fisher, the court found the guilty plea was “involuntary” because the defendant was not told that revocation of his driver‘s license for 180 days was a mandatory and immediate punishment resulting from his guilty plea to possession of marijuana. 877 N.W.2d at 684-85. Although Fisher did not include an analysis of materiality, it is reasonable to conclude that losing one‘s driving privileges for six months would be a significant consideration in a guilty plea to a misdemeanor drug-possession offense.9 In contrast, absence of information about the 35% surcharges was not material in the context Weitzel‘s felony plea bargain. First, Weitzel was advised that he faced a range of fines on the four offenses to which he was pleading guilty and was advised that three of the four fines could be suspended. So the surcharges were not an automatic result of the plea bargain in the same way Fisher‘s license suspension was. Second, Weitzel was told he faced up to ten years in prison, which loomed larger than the additional surcharge penalties.
Weitzel told the court he decided to enter Alford pleas to four counts in return for
III. Iowa Has Not Followed the Automatic-Reversal Rule Adopted by the Majority
Finally, the majority endorses an automatic-reversal rule derived from the discussion in McCarthy v. United States, concerning an early version of Rule 11, which governs guilty pleas in federal court. 394 U.S. 459, 471 (1969) (concluding “prejudice inheres in a failure to comply with Rule 11“). But even the federal courts moved quickly away from such an exacting approach. “In 1975, a few years after McCarthy came down, Congress transformed Rule 11 into a detailed formula for testing a defendant‘s readiness to proceed to enter a plea of guilty, obliging the judge to give specified advice about the charge, the applicable criminal statute, and even collateral law.” United States v. Vonn, 535 U.S. 55, 69 (2002).
[A]lthough a rule of per se reversal might have been justified at the time McCarthy was decided, “[a]n inevitable consequence of the 1975 amendments was some increase in the risk that a trial judge, in a particular case, might inadvertently deviate to some degree from the procedure which a very literal reading of Rule 11 would appear to require.” After the amendments, “it became more apparent than ever that Rule 11 should not be given such a crabbed interpretation that ceremony was exalted over substance.”
Id. at 70 (quoting Advisory Committee‘s Notes on federal rule). In 1983, a harmless-error provision10 was added to the federal rule because “the practice of automatic reversal for error threatening little prejudice to a defendant or disgrace to the legal system” imposed “a cost on Rule 11 mistakes that McCarthy neither required nor justified.” Id.
Even before the addition of the harmless-error provision, some federal circuits declined to automatically reverse when the trial court‘s admonitions strayed from the strict constructs of the guilty-plea rule. See, e.g., United States v. Dayton, 604 F.2d 931, 940 (5th Cir. 1979) (upholding plea despite narration of the nature of the charges being given by the prosecutor rather than the court); United States v. Conrad, 598 F.2d 506, 510 (9th Cir. 1979) (rejecting claim that plea court did not adequately inform defendant of the penalties “provided by law” when it discussed only the bargained-for sentence because “[m]atters of reality, and not mere ritual, should be controlling” (alteration in original) (quoting McCarthy, 394 U.S. at 468 n.20)). This line of reasoning was ultimately embraced by the Advisory Committee on the federal rules, and the federal courts have moved “almost full circle” from “the inflexible remedial approach” of McCarthy. See Finney, 834 N.W.2d at 54 (citation omitted) (detailing history of plea-bargain jurisprudence).
Iowa has never purported to follow the McCarthy automatic-reversal rule as a means to enforce the guilty-plea admonitions delivered by its trial judges. In the same year McCarthy was decided, our court adopted the plea-colloquy standards promulgated by the American Bar Association (ABA) Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, Pleas of Guilty, sections 1.4 through 1.7. See Sisco, 169 N.W.2d at 547-48 (including the requirement that plea courts advise defendants of “the maximum possible sentence” and the “mandatory minimum sentence, if any”11). The Sisco court did not take the same firm stand as McCarthy regarding mandatory compliance with the procedural requirements, stating: “This does not mean a determination by trial courts of the matters here involved requires any ritualistic or rigid formula be fixed upon or followed. There must, however, be meaningful compliance with these guideline standards.” Id.
After Sisco, but before enactment of what is now
Given that parallel noted by our supreme court, I believe federal caselaw provides a useful analogy here. Before entry of a guilty plea in
Similarly here, any prejudice to Weitzel would not stem from unexplained costs labeled as “surcharges” but from a bottom-line liability at sentencing that was not foreshadowed at the plea hearing. At sentencing, Weitzel was ordered to pay $1922.50, in the form of a fine and surcharges; because Weitzel had been warned at the plea hearing he could face fines and surcharges totaling $21,735—and decided to plead guilty anyway—his rights were not impaired by the court‘s failure to specifically inform him of the 35% surcharges mandated by
The majority‘s “bright-line rule“—reversing for any error in the information delivered by the plea-taking court concerning the potential penalties—undermines the ability of crime victims and members of the public to have confidence that valid convictions will not be vacated merely to remind plea-taking courts of the importance of “conducting a rule-compliant plea colloquy.” The majority‘s refusal to consider whether a minor omission may, in context, be insubstantial, which is “directed at technical and literal compliance by our brothers [and sisters] on the district bench with [ Fisher‘s elaborations on
Doyle, J., joins this dissent.
State v. Weitzel
Case Number 16-1112
State of Iowa Courts
Electronically signed on 2017-05-03 09:10:10