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Sunday, November 19, 2006

Ind. Decisions - "Court decisions ignite plea appeals"

"Court decisions ignite plea appeals: Affirm right even in guilty-plea agreements" is the heading to an analysis piece today by Dionne Waugh in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, involving "a recent spate of decisions from the Indiana Court of Appeals." From the lengthy article:

Last spring, the court ruled judges must tell defendants who plead guilty in open or capped plea agreements that they have a right to appeal. An open plea * * * is when a defendant pleads guilty without an agreement regarding punishment. A capped plea agreement is when defendants plead guilty with an agreement that they will serve no more than a particular period of time in prison.

The result is that more defendants are appealing – at taxpayer expense because those who cannot afford an attorney are appointed one – and creating more work for an already clogged judicial system. The decision has also irked some judges who feel the ruling negates the point of plea agreements and second-guesses local judges’ decisions.

“It really has opened a floodgate,” said Charles Leonard, chief public defender in Allen County. “It seems to me there are so many appeals at county expense. Some are good and some are not.”

Although defendants have always had the right to appeal in such cases, most attorneys and judges assumed defendants were giving up that right when they pleaded guilty, Huntington Superior Court Judge Jeff Heffelfinger said.

“So when the appellate decision came down, it changed what everybody thought was the status quo,” he said. * * *

The Court of Appeals first ruled on the issue in 2003 when Daniel Boone Collins filed a petition for post-conviction relief in Marion County Superior Court.

Collins pleaded guilty as part of an open plea agreement to charges of child molesting and being a habitual offender, the latter of which allows a judge to enhance a person’s sentence threefold. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

In the petition, filed in 2002, Collins said he had been erroneously sentenced. The Marion County judge denied his petition. The appeals court affirmed that decision but rejected the prosecution’s argument that Collins had given up his right to challenge the sentence.

In its opinion, the appeals court ruled that the Marion County judge had erred by telling Collins he waived his right to appeal the sentence because he pleaded guilty.

This year, the court made the same ruling in several cases involving defendants with capped pleas. That’s when courtrooms across the state really began to feel the effects, Allen Superior Judge Fran Gull said.

Beyond that, she said, the ruling also applies to any plea agreement case in which judges have discretion, from the prison time to the particular jail where defendants will serve their sentence.

In Allen County, fees for transcripts of the court hearings doubled from $6,000 in the first quarter to $12,000 in the second quarter of this year, she said.

Most of the extra work falls on court reporters, who are required to transcribe and copy the court hearings in the case within the 30- to 60-day appeal period. This is on top of their regular daily duties.

Court reporter Marsha Ternet said she’s working many more weekends to keep up with the increased appeals. A court reporter is paid $3.75 a page, and an average guilty plea costs about $125, she said. It’s not as expensive as a daylong jury trial, which costs an average $1,000, but if nine out of 10 people appeal their sentences, it costs taxpayers a total of $1,125 for transcripts. * * *

Although more defendants may be appealing their sentences under the new ruling, Indiana prosecutors are working to curb that.

In Huntington County, prosecutors have recently put a phrase into all plea agreements stating that defendants are giving up their right to appeal the sentence, even if they don’t know exactly what their sentence will be.

Allen County prosecutors are moving in the same direction.

“We’re in the process of working on waiver language that’s going to be including in pleas, and if people are going to be interested in these pleas, they’re going to have to waive those rights,” Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards said.

[Law professor Joel M. Schumm at the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis] said another way to reduce appeals is for prosecutors to offer agreements with set prison terms.

“Most of the time, the trial judge sentence is upheld. But if it’s far out of range, then the (appeals) court is going to reduce it,” Schumm said. “In some counties, judges impose really tough sentences. In others, judges do reasonable sentences. The Court of Appeals should have a say in equalizing that out so two people get roughly the same sentence. If it weren’t for the right to appeal, that wouldn’t happen a lot of times.”

He also said that even though more defendants may be appealing their sentences, those appealing with capped pleas have the least chance of succeeding because the judge has such a narrow sentencing range.

Despite the increased number of appeals, Schumm said the decision will not swamp the appeals court because the judges can resolve such cases more expeditiously than a two-day or two-week trial.

Unfortunately, no case names are given in the article.

Here is the Indiana Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Collins v. State, with Justice Sullivan writing:

In this case, we resolve a conflict in the Court of Appeals over whether an individual who pleads guilty to an offense in an “open plea” is entitled to challenge the sentence imposed by means of a petition of post-conviction relief. Following Taylor v. State, 780 N.E.2d 430 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003), trans. denied, 804 N.E.2d 760 (Ind. 2003), we hold that such claims must be raised on direct appeal if at all. We also point out that Ind. Post-Conviction Rule 2 may be available for this purpose.
Michael Ausbrook of INCourts blog has written at length about Collins and Gutermuth I and II.

[Gutermuth II (CA ruling here), by the way, was set for oral argument on11/8/06, later stayed by the Supreme Court: "The motion to stay further proceedings in this appeal is granted and the order scheduling oral arguments for Nov. 8, 2006 is vacated. The parties will notify the Court ... when the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a decision in Burton v. Waddington. "

Read more about the Burton appeal here in The National Appellate Journal, which writes that Burton asks:

the Supreme Court the following questions: (1) Is the holding in Blakely v. Washington a new rule or was it dictated by Apprendi v. New Jersey? (2) If Blakely is a new rule, does its requirement that facts resulting in an enhanced statutory maximum be proved beyond a reasonable doubt apply retroactively?]

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 19, 2006 11:49 AM
Posted to Ind. App.Ct. Decisions