State v. Brown, Unpublished Decision (10-25-2002)
State v. Brown, Unpublished Decision (10-25-2002)
Opinion of the Court
{¶ 2} On appeal, Brown presents four assignments of error, in which he challenges the denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty pleas without an evidentiary hearing or findings of fact and conclusions of law. Finding no merit to any aspect of the challenges advanced on appeal, we affirm the judgment of the common pleas court.
{¶ 3} In May of 1995, Brown entered guilty pleas to two counts of aggravated robbery. In June of 1995, the trial court accepted the pleas, found Brown guilty of each charge and its accompanying specification, and sentenced him as appears of record. From this judgment of conviction, Brown took no appeal.
{¶ 4} On March 16, 2001, Brown filed with the common pleas court a Crim.R. 32.1 motion to withdraw his guilty pleas. The court denied the motion on September 17, 2001, and this appeal ensued.
{¶ 5} In his four assignments of error, Brown contends that the common pleas court violated his state and federal due-process rights by (1) dismissing his motion to withdraw his guilty pleas, (2) granting the state a "directed verdict" and summary judgment on the motion, (3) overruling the motion without journalizing findings of fact and conclusions of law, and (4) dismissing the motion without conducting an evidentiary hearing.
{¶ 8} Where a criminal defendant, subsequent to his or her direct appeal, files a motion seeking vacation or correction of his or her sentence on the basis that his or her constitutional rights have been violated, such a motion is a petition for postconviction relief as defined in R.C.
2953.21 .In Hill, we read the decision in Reynolds to require that a postsentence motion to withdraw a guilty plea be addressed as a postconviction petition subject to R.C.
2953.21 et seq. Accord State v. Idowu (June 28, 2002), 1st Dist. No. C-010646; State v. Gaither (Dec. 1, 2000), 1st Dist. No. C-000205.
{¶ 9} But in State v. Bush, supra, the supreme court held that the rule of Reynolds did not extend to, and thus "R.C.
{¶ 11} A motion to withdraw a plea of guilty or no contest may be made only before sentence is imposed; but to correct manifest injustice the court after sentence may set aside the judgment of conviction and permit the defendant to withdraw his or her plea.
{¶ 12} Thus, a postsentence motion to withdraw a plea of guilty or no contest may be granted only upon a showing of "manifest injustice." See State v. Smith (1977),
49 Ohio St.2d 261 ,361 N.E.2d 1324 , paragraph one of the syllabus. The determination of whether such a showing has been made is committed to the sound discretion of the trial court and will not be disturbed on appeal in the absence of some demonstration that the court abused its discretion. See id., paragraph two of the syllabus.
{¶ 13} Brown, in his motion, sought to withdraw his guilty pleas on the ground that "there exist[ed] a manifest miscarriage of justice." He asserted that his trial attorney was ineffective in counseling him to enter "unknowing and unintelligent" guilty pleas when he had been afforded neither his right to a speedy trial nor his right of allocution at sentencing.
{¶ 14} As to Brown's contention that he was not brought to trial within the time strictures of R.C.
{¶ 15} In support of his contention that trial counsel's ineffectiveness denied him his right of allocution, Brown asserted that his counsel had failed to advise him of the right and then had declined on his behalf the opportunity to exercise the right at sentencing. However, the common pleas court, in ruling upon Brown's motion to withdraw his guilty pleas, did not have before it a transcript of the proceedings at the plea hearing or at sentencing. The absence of the transcript was attributable to Brown's failure to take a direct appeal from his judgment of conviction and to his failure to submit a copy of a transcript with his motion to withdraw his pleas. Its absence is fatal to his claim on appeal, because, without the transcript, the record before us cannot be said to manifest the error of which Brown now complains.
{¶ 16} Thus, Brown's challenge to the knowing and intelligent nature of his guilty pleas fails in its underlying premises. It follows that Brown's trial counsel cannot be said to have violated a substantial duty to him in counseling the pleas. See Strickland v. Washington
(1984),
{¶ 18} We overrule the third assignment of error for the simple reason that Crim.R. 32.1 does not require a trial court, when deciding a postsentence motion to withdraw a guilty or no-contest plea, to issue findings of fact and conclusions of law. See State ex rel. Chavis v.Griffin (2001),
{¶ 19} Nor does the rule expressly provide for an evidentiary hearing on such a motion. Nevertheless, we have effectively adopted a rule that requires a trial court to hold a hearing on the motion if the facts alleged in the motion, and accepted as true by the court, would require that the plea be withdrawn. See State v. West (1999),
{¶ 20} Brown alleged in support of his motion that, at the sentencing hearing, he was not afforded his right of allocution. Crim.R. 32(A)(1) confers upon a criminal defendant an absolute right of allocution by requiring that the trial court, "before imposing sentence, * * * address the defendant personally and ask whether he or she wishes to make a statement in his or her own behalf or [to] present any information in mitigation of punishment." State v. Campbell (2000),
{¶ 21} Brown also alleged that R.C.
{¶ 22} Having thus concluded that the facts alleged in the motion, and acceptable as true by the court, would not have required that Brown's guilty pleas be withdrawn, we hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the motion. Accordingly, we overrule the fourth and final assignment of error and affirm the judgment of the court below.
Judgment affirmed.
Painter, P.J., Hildebrandt and Winkler, JJ.
The court has placed of record its own entry in this case on the date of the release of this Decision.
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