Schmidt v. State

647 P.2d 796, 103 Idaho 340, 1982 Ida. App. LEXIS 243
CourtIdaho Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 29, 1982
Docket13795
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 647 P.2d 796 (Schmidt v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Schmidt v. State, 647 P.2d 796, 103 Idaho 340, 1982 Ida. App. LEXIS 243 (Idaho Ct. App. 1982).

Opinion

WALTERS, Chief Judge.

I. Facts and Procedure.

This is an appeal from an order of the district court granting summary disposition of an application for post-conviction relief. The applicant, Ardell K. Schmidt, was charged with the unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. He was found to be an indigent person, an attorney was appointed to represent him, and he entered a plea of not guilty. The day before his trial Schmidt changed his plea to guilty. Thereafter the trial court sentenced him to the custody of the Board of Correction for an indeterminate period not to exceed fifteen years. The trial court retained jurisdiction for the first one hundred-twenty days pursuant to I.C. § 19-2601.

While in the custody of the Board, Schmidt was sent to the North Idaho Correctional Institution located at Cottonwood, Idaho. Near the expiration of the period of retained jurisdiction, Schmidt appeared before the Board’s central classification committee. Following the classification hearing, the committee recommended that the trial court relinquish jurisdiction over Schmidt. The trial court reviewed the committee’s recommendations and terminated jurisdiction, ordering that the remainder of the sentence be served.

Schmidt then filed an application for post-conviction relief before the district court. Schmidt alleged that he had been denied due process of law in the proceeding before the classification committee at Cottonwood. The district court gave notice of intent to dismiss the application, ruling that the procedure followed by the committee conformed with the requirements of State v. Wolfe, 99 Idaho 382, 582 P.2d 728 (1978). Pursuant to Idaho Code § 19 — 4906(b), Schmidt was given twenty days within which to respond to the court’s proposed *342 dismissal of the application. Schmidt then timely filed a motion for leave of court to supplement his application for post-conviction relief. Thereafter, and following a series of motions and orders relating to the appointment of counsel, discovery, and similar matters, Schmidt filed an amended application for post-conviction relief.

Both Schmidt and the state then filed motions for summary disposition pursuant to I.C. § 19-4906{c). These motions represented that no genuine issues of material fact existed in respect to the amended application, and that each moving party was entitled to judgment on the application as a matter of law. Following argument and receipt of briefs, the district court entered an order granting the state’s motion and dismissed the amended application. Schmidt appeals. We affirm the order of the district court.

II. Issues on Appeal.

On appeal, Schmidt contends that the district court erred in making seven rulings in the order granting summary disposition. These rulings are as follows: (a) that the general nature of the crime was explained to Schmidt prior to acceptance of his plea of guilty; (b) that the trial court had no duty to explain the specific elements of the crime with which Schmidt was charged, prior to accepting his plea of guilty; (c) that the trial court had no obligation to ascertain whether there was a sufficient factual basis for the charge, prior to accepting Schmidt’s plea of guilty; (d) that a letter from Schmidt’s brother-in-law to the prosecutor was not material to the charge of delivery of a controlled substance, and was thus not discoverable by Schmidt; (e) that Schmidt was not denied the right of appeal due to inadequate counsel; (f) that Schmidt was not entitled to the assistance of legal counsel in respect to the classification hearing held at the Cottonwood facility; and (g) that a trial court may terminate its jurisdiction over a defendant without first holding an evidentiary hearing.

III. Voluntariness and Understanding of the Plea.

The first two issues on appeal concern the acceptance of Schmidt’s plea of guilty. Schmidt argues that the district court erred in ruling that the nature of the crime was explained to Schmidt prior to acceptance of his plea of guilty, and that the court also erred in ruling that the trial court had no duty to explain to him the elements of the crime charged, prior to accepting his plea of guilty. These issues relate to the voluntariness and understanding requirements of his plea.

Schmidt argues that his plea of guilty was not voluntarily entered because neither the nature of the crime nor the elements thereof were explained to him prior to acceptance of his plea. In this regard, Schmidt cites the cases of McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969) and Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637, 96 S.Ct. 2253, 49 L.Ed.2d 108 (1976).

McCarthy focused on the procedure that must be followed under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, before a United States district court may accept a guilty plea. By its own terms that decision was rendered pursuant to the supervisory power of the United States Supreme Court over the federal courts in the administration of criminal law, and because of an apparent conflict between the federal courts of appeal over the effect of the failure of federal district judges to follow the provisions of Federal Rule 11. The Idaho Supreme Court has recognized that the court in McCarthy “expressly based its decision upon its supervisory power over the courts rather than upon constitutional grounds.” State v. Colyer, 98 Idaho 32, 34, 557 P.2d 626, 628 (1976). It has also been noted that “Rule 11, Fed.R.Crim.P., of course, does not apply to a plea of guilty in state courts.” Wilkins v. Erickson, 505 F.2d 761, 765 (9th Cir. 1974). Because of its uniqueness as a federal procedural decision under a specific rule of practice in the federal courts, we deem McCarthy to be inapplicable to Schmidt’s case.

*343 Schmidt properly cites Henderson, supra, for the proposition that when pleading guilty a defendant must be informed of the nature and elements of the crime charged; otherwise his plea of guilty may be deemed involuntary either because he did not understand the nature of the constitutional protections which he waives by pleading guilty, or because he had such an incomplete understanding of the charge that his plea cannot stand as an intelligent admission of guilt. In Henderson, the defendant was charged with first degree murder but pled to second degree murder through a plea bargain.

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647 P.2d 796, 103 Idaho 340, 1982 Ida. App. LEXIS 243, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schmidt-v-state-idahoctapp-1982.