State v. Brest
Opinion
After evidentiary hearing, the trial court granted the appellee’s Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.850 motion to vacate the convictions and sentences which followed his guilty and nolo pleas, on the stated ground1 that Brest was “totally confused and afraid”2 when he entered the pleas over a year earlier before another judge.3 The state appeals.
[640] We conclude that the lower court’s findings, which were in turn based entirely upon the defendant’s own conclusory and subjective4 statements that he was upset, [641] confused and frightened at the hearing,5 were legally insufficient to justify the ultimate determination that the pleas were not knowingly and understandingly entered and [642] were thus fatally involuntary — in the face of the unequivocal demonstration in the plea colloquy6 to the contrary. We consider that Judge Weinfeld’s perceptive remarks in Fluitt v. Superintendent, Green Haven Correctional Facility, 480 F.Supp. 81 (S.D.N.Y.1979) are clearly applicable here:
“[Distress” without more, does not entitle one to a hearing. If that were the rule every defendant’s application to withdraw a plea of guilty would automatically have to be granted. “Distress” and “nervousness” are the characteristics of most persons facing immediate trial under a criminal prosecution. To accept such a normal emotional reaction as a ground to vitiate a plea entered only after extensive questioning of a defendant to assure its constitutional validity, would make a shambles of the guilty plea procedure. Indeed, the Supreme Court has observed that “a plea of guilty is not invalid merely because entered to avoid the possibility of a death penalty.” • [footnotes omitted].
480 F.Supp. at 86. As this court held in the controlling case of State v. Pinto, 273 So.2d 408 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973), cert. dismissed, 283 So.2d 367 (Fla.1973),
[a] defendant often pleads guilty after consultation and advice from his attorney. Such a decision is a tactical one and5 may not be whimsically revoked at a later time. Belsky v. State, Fla.App.1970, 231 So.2d 256; Simpson v. State, Fla.App. 1964, 164 So.2d 224. Where, as here, the guilty plea was entered upon advice of counsel and where the record shows a full examination by the court and the defendant’s concurrence in the plea, the record clearly refutes the defendant’s later assertion that the plea was not voluntary.
273 So.2d at 411. See White v. State, 244 So.2d 499 (Fla. 1st DCA 1970); O’Quinn v. State, 364 So.2d 775 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), cert. denied, 373 So.2d 460 (Fla.1979). See generally Williams v. State, 316 So.2d 267 (Fla.1975).
For these reasons, the order below is reversed with directions to reinstate the defendant’s convictions and sentences.
Reversed.
Footnotes
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421 So. 2d 638 (State v. Brest) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.