Williams v. State

367 S.W.3d 652, 2012 WL 2106376, 2012 Mo. App. LEXIS 778
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided June 12, 2012·No. No. ED 96605·Published·Cited by 9 cases

Opinion

GARY M. GAERTNER, JR., Judge.

Introduction

Earl Williams (Movant) appeals the motion court’s judgment denying, without an evidentiary hearing, his Rule 29.151 Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Judgment and Sentence and Request for Evi-dentiary Hearing (Rule 29.15 Motion). We affirm the result.

Background

In 2009, Movant was convicted after a bench trial of robbery in the first degree, armed criminal action, and resisting lawful detention. The trial court sentenced Mov-ant to concurrent terms of ten years for the robbery conviction, and three years each for the remaining two convictions. This Court affirmed Movant’s convictions on appeal, but remanded to the trial court to correct a sentencing error on the third count. State v. Williams, 303 S.W.3d 634, 636-37 (Mo.App. E.D.2010).

Movant filed a pro se motion under Rule 29.15, and later filed his amended Rule 29.15 Motion through counsel. In this motion, he alleged that his trial counsel was ineffective because she “failed to explain the minimum punishment for robbery in the first degree was ten years.” Movant explained that he understood a conviction carried a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment, but he was not aware of a minimum. He believed he could receive any sentence from one day to life if convicted at trial, and he believed that his lack of criminal history meant that he would likely receive a sentence between five and seven years on all three charges. Movant alleges this mistaken belief led him to reject a plea offer of three years for armed criminal action and probation for the robbery and resisting lawful detention counts. He further alleges that “had [he] understood the minimum was ten years for robbery, he would have accepted the plea agreement and not tried his case.” He concludes this rendered his decision to go to trial involuntary and ill-informed.

[654] The motion court denied Movant’s Rule 29.15 Motion without an evidentiary hearing, finding that Movant had not asserted a plausible claim, in that he did not allege his trial counsel affirmatively misinformed him regarding the minimum possible sentence for robbery, and that “the alleged prejudice from any dereliction of counsel [was] highly speculative.” This appeal follows.

Standard of Review

Appellate review of the denial of a post-conviction motion is limited to a determination of whether the findings and conclusions of the motion court are clearly erroneous. Rule 29.15(k). On review, the motion court’s findings are presumptively correct. Castor v. State, 245 S.W.3d 909, 912 (Mo.App. E.D.2008). The motion court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law are clearly erroneous only if the reviewing court, having examined the entire record, is left with the definite and firm impression that a mistake has been made. Forrest v. State, 290 S.W.3d 704, 708 (Mo. banc 2009). A movant is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing unless his or her motion meets three requirements: (1) the motion alleges facts that if true would warrant relief; (2) the facts alleged are not refuted by the record; and (3) the matter complained of resulted in prejudice to the movant. Morrow v. State, 21 S.W.3d 819, 823 (Mo. banc 2000).

Discussion

Movant’s sole point on appeal is that his counsel was ineffective for failing to ensure that he understood the range of possible punishment after a conviction at trial. Movant argues that because he alleged both deficient performance and prejudice, he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his claim. We discuss each in turn.

Whether an attorney’s failure to inform a defendant of the mandatory minimum punishment for an offense can amount to ineffective assistance of counsel when it causes a defendant to reject a favorable plea offer is an issue of first impression in this Court. The right to counsel during plea negotiations is an issue recently taken up by the United States Supreme Court in the companion cases of Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 1376, 182 L.Ed.2d 398 (2012), and Missouri v. Frye, 566 U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 1399, 182 L.Ed.2d 379 (2012). These recent decisions control our analysis.

First, under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to Missouri by the Fourteenth Amendment, criminal defendants are entitled to representation by counsel, meaning they are entitled to effective assistance of counsel. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052. This right attaches at all “critical stages” of the criminal proceeding. Frye, 132 S.Ct. at 1405 (citing Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778, 786, 129 S.Ct. 2079, 173 L.Ed.2d 955 (2009)).

Frye settled the question of whether plea negotiations, taking place before any formal plea is entered, constitute such a critical stage. The Supreme Court emphasized that the vast majority of criminal cases are adjudicated by pleas, and also noted the potential of plea agreements to benefit both the state and the criminal defendants by conserving state resources and allowing defendants to receive more favorable sentences. Id. at 1407. The Court concluded that in order to realize these benefits, a criminal defendant must have effective assistance of counsel during plea negotiations under the Sixth Amendment. Id. at 1407-08. “Anything less ... might deny a defendant effective representation by counsel at the only stage when legal aid and advice would help him.” Id. at 1408 (quoting Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 204, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 [655] L.Ed.2d 246 (1964)) (internal quotations omitted).

As in all claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, the test for determining whether defense counsel was ineffective during plea negotiations is the two-prong test laid out in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). See Frye, 132 S.Ct. at 1409 (applying Strickland test); Lafler, 132 S.Ct. at 1384-85 (same). Movant must show first, that his counsel’s performance was deficient, and second, that Movant was prejudiced thereby. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052.

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Williams v. State, 367 S.W.3d 652, 2012 WL 2106376, 2012 Mo. App. LEXIS 778 (Mo. Ct. App. 2012).

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