Louis Syms appeals the trial court’s denial of his motion to enforce his plea agreement. For the reasons that follow, we reverse.
Syms was charged with possession of oxycodone with intent to distribute, which carries a punishment of ten to forty years or life;
Justin Maines, the former assistant district attorney (“ADA”) who was first assigned to
At a November 13, 2012 calendar call, both defense counsel and the State affirmed that they had reached a plea agreement, noting that with regard to the probation revocation, the plea would be open-ended. The case was continued thereafter on two separate occasions at Syms’s request, with no objection by the State. Syms sought one continuance so that he could acquire evidence of his drug addiction and rehabilitation efforts to present in his defense at the open-ended revocation hearing. He sought a second continuance because he had information concerning an unrelated armed robbery that he hoped to exchange for a more favorable sentence in his own case.
In January 2013, a new district attorney (“DA”) was sworn in, Maines resigned, and a new ADA was assigned to Syms’s case. The new DA instituted a policy that the office would no longer waive recidivist sentencing. Accordingly, the new ADA notified Syms’s attorney that the State would not honor the plea deal because it was “both stale (8 months old) and unreasonable based on our new prosecution standards.”
Syms filed a motion to enforce the plea agreement. Following a hearing, the trial court denied the motion on the ground that no clear, definite, and enforceable agreement existed. The trial court certified its order for immediate review at Syms’s request, and Syms filed an interlocutory application, which this Court granted. This appeal followed.
“Whether a settlement is an enforceable agreement is a question of contract law for the trial court, but an appellate court owes no deference to its conclusions.”
A plea agreement is, in essence, a contract between a defendant and the State. Given the unique nature of the agreement, we avoid “slavish adherence” to civil contract principles. Nonetheless, rules of contract often provide the appropriate framework for addressing disputes involving plea agreements.9
Here, the trial court acknowledged that the parties had reached an agreement, but deemed it unenforceable because the record did “not demonstrate how . . . [Syms] would have pleadfed] or how he would have
“This is simply a case where an agreement as to terms was clearly made[,] and then [the State] changed [its] mind and no longer wanted to [honor the plea agreement].”
Judgment reversed.
Notes
See OCGA §§ 16-13-30 (b), (d); 16-13-26 (1) (A) (xiv) (listing oxycodone as a Schedule II controlled substance).
See OCGA § 16-13-32.3 (a), (b).
See OCGA §§ 16-13-30 (b); 16-13-28 (a) (1) (listing alprazolam as a Schedule IVcontrolled substance).
The record contains a copy of a January 3, 2013 e-mail from defense counsel to Maines asking whether Maines would be willing to “help [Syms] out with a better” offer than that they had agreed upon in exchange for information related to a “multiparty armed robbery of a restaurant.”
Maines testified that he “believed that [defense counsel] wanted to see if both sides would want to enter into a new agreement if. .. Syms had new information.”
Capitol Materials v. Kellogg & Kimsey, Inc.,
Glover v. State,
State v. Hanson,
(Footnotes omitted.) Brown v. State,
Rushin v. Ussery,
The State argues that defense counsel’s conversations with the former ADA regarding the possibility of negotiating a new reduced sentence in exchange for information about another crime constituted a counteroffer. We disagree. The State made an offer, and Syms accepted it in or around November 2013. Defense counsel’s subsequent inquiry regarding the possibility of renegotiating the plea agreement, in the absence of any revocation by either party, does not constitute a counteroffer that invalidates the parties’ prior agreement.
(Punctuation omitted.) Johnson v. DeKalb County,