State v. Gruber

281 N.W.2d 636, 1979 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 960
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedJuly 25, 1979
Docket62650
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 281 N.W.2d 636 (State v. Gruber) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Gruber, 281 N.W.2d 636, 1979 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 960 (iowa 1979).

Opinion

McCORMICK, Justice.

The question here is whether defendant Ronald Merrill Gruber had a right to be present at the hearing upon his motion in arrest of judgment. We hold he did and therefore vacate the order overruling his motion entered after a hearing at which he was not present. We remand for a hearing in defendant’s presence.

In August 1977 defendant entered a plea of guilty to a charge of rape in violation of section 698.1, The Code 1975. In October 1977 he was sentenced for the offense to a term of not to exceed thirty-five years imprisonment.

In December 1977 defendant filed a motion in arrest of judgment in which he alleged in one division that his guilty plea was not knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily entered and in another division that it was induced by false assurances from all material parties that he would receive probation. Later he filed a motion requesting that he be returned from prison to Black Hawk County to testify in support of the motion in arrest. He alleged he had a due process right under the Iowa and United States Constitutions to be present at the hearing on the motion. The court sustained the motion and ordered that defendant be returned for a February 9,1978, hearing on the motion in arrest.

Subsequently defendant’s lawyer withdrew from the case, and an order was entered on February 3, 1978, directing the court administrator to reschedule the hearing and advising the sheriff not to return defendant until told to do so by further order of the court. A separate order was entered authorizing counsel to withdraw and appointing new counsel. On February 8, 1978, an order was entered setting hearing on the motion in arrest of judgment for February 24, 1978.

The only one of these orders sent to defendant was the order of February 3 postponing the February 9 hearing and delaying defendant’s return pending appointment of new counsel and fixing of a new hearing date.

Defendant was not returned for the February 24 hearing. Instead his new attorney agreed with the State to submit the motion on the transcript of the guilty plea proceeding. So submitted, the motion was overruled on its merits by order entered March 1, 1978. Later in the month, without notifying defendant, his attorney withdrew from the case and moved to California.

In August 1978 defendant wrote the court concerning the order of February 3, inquiring whether counsel had been appointed and whether a new hearing date had been set. Defendant asserted he had *638 not been contacted by counsel and did not know counsel’s identity. On August 23, 1978, the court mailed to defendant a copy of the March 1 order overruling his motion in arrest of judgment.

New counsel was appointed for defendant and we granted permission for a delayed appeal.

The determinative issue is whether in these circumstances defendant was denied due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by the failure to accord him the right to be present at the hearing on his motion in arrest of judgment.

In Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 107-08, 54 S.Ct. 330, 333, 78 L.Ed. 674, 679 (1934), the Supreme Court held that, “[s]o far as the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, the presence of a defendant is a condition of due process to the extent that a fair and just hearing would be thwarted by his absence, and to that extent only.” Snyder antedated the incorporation of the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation in the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965), but the Court assumed the right was protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also assumed an accused in a felony prosecution has a right to be present “whenever his presence has a relation, reasonably substantial, to the fulness of his opportunity to defend against the charge.” 291 U.S. at 105-06, 54 S.Ct. at 332, 78 L.Ed. at 678. We believe it is now established that these assumptions are warranted.

The Snyder Court held that the murder defendant in that case was not denied due process by a trial court’s refusal to permit him to be present at a jury view of the scene of the homicide. At issue here is the effect of this holding on a defendant’s right to be present at hearings on postconviction motions.

The majority of courts have held that a convicted defendant does not invariably have a due process right to be present at hearings on motions for new trial or in arrest of judgment. See Annot., 69 A.L. R.2d 835 (1960). The rationale most frequently employed is that the trial ends when a verdict has been rendered. See Ash v. State, 238 Md. 317, 320-21, 208 A.2d 691, 693 (1965); In re Commitment of Wells, 197 Neb. 584, 591-92, 249 N.W.2d 904, 908-09 (1977); Jones v. State, 2 Tenn.Cr.App. 152, 452 S.W.2d 361, 364 (1969). Courts also have suggested that the defendant’s right to be present is confined to hearings involving issues of fact rather than only issues of law. See Council v. Clemmer, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 74, 76-77, 177 F.2d 22, 24-25, cert. denied, 338 U.S. 880, 70 S.Ct. 150, 94 L.Ed. 540 (1949); Reid v. State, 119 Ga.App. 368, 368, 166 S.E.2d 900, 901 (1969); Joseph v. State, 236 Ind. 529, 536-41, 141 N.E.2d 109, 112-15 (1957), cert. dismissed, 359 U.S 117, 79 S.Ct. 720, 3 L.Ed.2d 673 (1959); State v. Peters, 146 Mont. 188, 195-97, 405 P.2d 642, 646-47 (1965).

Other courts have held the defendant has a right to be present at all hearings on post-verdict motions. See Crow v. State, 89 Tex.Cr.R. 149, 156, 230 S.W. 148, 152 (1921); Gibson v. State, 3 Tex.App. 437 passim (1878); Staples v. Commonwealth, 140 Va. 583, 586-87, 125 S.E. 319, 320-21 (1924); State v. Parsons, 39 W.Va. 464, 466-67, 19 S.E. 876, 877 (1894).

Under State v. Reaves, 254 N.W.2d 488, 493 (Iowa 1977), a convicted defendant in a case involving procedures applicable before the Code revision of January 1, 1978, could not challenge the adequacy of his guilty plea proceeding on appeal unless he first presented his claim to the trial court in a motion in arrest of judgment under chapter 788, The Code 1977. Cf. Iowa R.Crim.P. 23(3)(a) (“A defendant’s failure to challenge the adequacy of a guilty plea proceeding by motion in arrest of judgment shall preclude his or her right to assert such challenge on appeal.”). This case is subject to Reaves.

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Bluebook (online)
281 N.W.2d 636, 1979 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 960, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gruber-iowa-1979.