State v. Holt

2010 UT App 138, 233 P.3d 828, 657 Utah Adv. Rep. 15, 2010 Utah App. LEXIS 142, 2010 WL 2105180
CourtCourt of Appeals of Utah
DecidedMay 27, 2010
Docket20080793-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2010 UT App 138 (State v. Holt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Holt, 2010 UT App 138, 233 P.3d 828, 657 Utah Adv. Rep. 15, 2010 Utah App. LEXIS 142, 2010 WL 2105180 (Utah Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

OPINION

ORME, Judge:

T1 This case involves the determination of whether the 2006 amendments to Utah's criminal offense reduction statute, which took away a trial court's discretion to reduce the level of offense for convictions that require sex offender registration, 2 constitute an ex post facto law or a law impairing the obligation of contracts as applied to Defendant, who relied on the prospect of a two-level reduction in entering his guilty plea. This opinion concludes that the 2006 reduction statute is not an ex post facto law because it is not a retroactive law and does not aggravate Defendant's crime or increase the criminal penalty for Defendant's crime. This opinion also declines to require the trial court to apply the 2003 reduction statute to Defendant based on his contract theory because his plea bargain implicitly incorporated existing *830 law at the time it was entered, including case law indicating that the reduction statute in effect at the time a probationer has completed the terms of probation is the version that applies. See State v. Shipler, 869 P.2d 968, 970-71 (Utah Ct.App.1994). This opinion recognizes, however, that in entering his guilty plea, Defendant relied on the State's promise to stipulate to a two-level reduction and, therefore, on the strong possibility that the trial court would consider and enter just such a reduction. Because the trial court is now incapable of granting a reduction, the issue remaining is whether Defendant's guilty plea can be withdrawn. While we express no opinion on the merits of such a claim, we do conclude that it needs to be pursued, if at all, in a postconviction proceeding.

BACKGROUND

T2 In February 2004, the State charged Defendant with ten counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, second degree felonies, see Utah Code Ann. § 76-5a-8(1)(a), (2) (2008), after Defendant was found in possession of child pornography. Following plea negotiations, Defendant pled guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. In exchange, the State dropped the other eight counts and "agree[d] to a two-level reduction of the offenses from a second degree felony to a Class A misdemeanor, pursuant to" the 2003 reduction statute that was then in effect, and which did not preclude reductions for convictions requiring sex offender registration. See id. § 76-3-402 (2008). The State's agreement to stipulate to such a reduction was, of course, conditioned on Defendant successfully completing his probation. See id. § 76-3-402(2)(b), (8). Defendant acknowledged in his plea agreement that he "kn[elw that any charge or sentencing concession or recommendation of probation or suspended sentence, including a reduction of the charges for sentencing ... [was] not binding on the judge."

T3 The trial court accepted Defendant's guilty plea and entered his convictions for two second degree felonies, i.e., two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, in July 2004. Two months later, the court sentenced Defendant to two indeterminate prison terms of one to fifteen years, to run consecutively. It then suspended the prison terms. The court also sentenced Defendant to two ninety-day jail terms to be served concurrently, but it later modified the sentence to thirty days, with credit for the time Defendant had already served. Finally, the court placed Defendant on probation for thirty-six months and ordered him to pay a $2000 fine. The court imposed several probation conditions, including submission to drug testing, submission to random computer screenings, and completion of a sex offender treatment program.

4 From all that appears, Defendant was a model probationer. In April 2006, about halfway through his probationary term, Adult Probation and Parole informed the trial court that Defendant had completed the terms of his probation and recommended early termination of probation. The court ruled that Defendant needed to serve the full statutory term of his probation, which Defendant thereafter successfully completed in August 2007. In April 2008, Defendant moved for a reduction of his offenses pursuant to the plea agreement. Because the reduction statute had been amended in July 2006 so as to foreclose a court's discretion to reduce the degree of offense for convictions that required sex offender registration, see id. § 76-3-402(6) (Supp. 2006), including for the crime of sexual exploitation of a minor, see id. § (2008), 3 the trial court denied Defendant's motions to reduce his convictions by two degrees and to compel the State to perform its obligations under the plea agreement. Defendant now appeals.

ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW

15 Defendant first claims his due process rights were violated under the Utah and *831 United States constitutions when the district court determined that the 2006 reduction statute, which Defendant urges is an ex post facto law, applied and precluded the court from granting his motion to reduce. Second, Defendant asserts that in applying the 2006 reduction statute, and in therefore not requiring the State to fulfill the promises it made in the plea agreement, the 2006 reduction statute impaired the obligation of contracts in violation of the Utah and United States constitutions. 4

16 Typically, a district court has "wide latitude and discretion in" determining whether to reduce the degree of an offense, and we only set aside "a sentence ... if we find it is '"imherently unfair or clearly excessive'" State v. McGee, 2001 UT 69, ¶ 6, 31 P.3d 531 (citation omitted). The trial court's decision to deny Defendant's motion to reduce, and the arguments raised on appeal, however, require a determination of whether application of the 2006 reduction statute to Defendant violated various constitutional provisions, which present questions of law that we review for correctness. See State v. Norcutt, 2006 UT App 269, ¶ 7, 139 P.3d 1066.

ANALYSIS

I. The 2006 Reduction Statute Is Not an Ex Post Facto Law.

T7 Defendant argues that the 2006 reduction statute is an ex post facto law because its retroactive application "effectively increases the magnitude of the punishment for [Defendant] and aggravates his offense because it deprives him of the reduction of his convictions and attendant consequences, which induced him to enter his pleas." The Utah and United States constitutions prohibit the passing of any ex post facto law, see TU.S. Const. art. I, § 10, el. 1; Utah Const. art. I, § 18, and the United States Supreme Court has identified four categories of criminal laws that constitute ex post facto laws, two of which are relevant here: 5 (1) "Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed"; and (2) "[elvery law that changes the punish, ment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed." State v. Marshall, 2003 UT App 381, ¶ 10, 81 P.3d 775 (emphases in original) (quoting Carmell v.

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Bluebook (online)
2010 UT App 138, 233 P.3d 828, 657 Utah Adv. Rep. 15, 2010 Utah App. LEXIS 142, 2010 WL 2105180, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-holt-utahctapp-2010.