63 So. 688 | Ala. Ct. App. | 1913
The result of the order made by the circuit judge was to recognize as effective an appeal claimed by the defendant in the inferior court of Mobile county from a judgment of conviction of that court against him. Coupled with the admission made on the hearing that the appeal was duly claimed b}r the defendant, was the further admission that the judgment of conviction was entered on the defendant’s plea of guilty to the complaint against him, and that his right'to appeal was denied in the court which rendered that judgment “upon the ground that there could be no appeal from a plea of guilty.” Assuming that the circuit judge on the
A plea of guilty does not preclude a defendant from complaining of the judgment and sentence entered upon it, unless it is entirely voluntary, and not induced by fear, misrepresentation, persuasion, or the holding out of false hopes, or made through inadvertence or ignorance. — Lowe v. State, 111 Md. 1, 73 Atl. 637, 24 L. R. A. (N. S.) 439, 18 Ann. Cas. 744; 12 Cyc. 253.
On the hearing below it was admitted that the defendant at the time of his trial in the inferior court was just 16 years of age and was not represented by counsel. The further admission of the bare fact that the judgment of conviction was entered on his plea of guilty did not require a finding that that plea was voluntary or entered in such circumstances as to make the judgment rendered on it such a finality as not to be the subject of an appeal by the defendant.
The statute in the most general terms confers the right of appeal “from any judgment” of the inferior court. — Local Acts of Ala. 1907, pp. 82, 83. On the evidence adduced on the hearing beloAV the judge Avas warranted in finding that the defendant duly claimed an appeal from the judgment of conviction, and Avas not required to find that the judgment Avas properly entered upon a plea of guilty so as to cut off any right of the defendant to seek by an appeal a trial de novo of the
Affirmed.