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Judge Erred in Tossing Plea Bargain Based On Defendant’s Late Arrival in Court—C.A.
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district has reversed a judgment committing a man to prison for two years although he had pled guilty to first degree residential burglary with a person present under a plea bargain that entailed probation but no prison time, with the justices holding that the fact the defendant had arrived late to court for his sentencing time did not justify the judge’s action in nullifying the agreement.
Wednesday’s decision comes in an unpublished opinion by Presiding Justice Lee Edmon of Div. Three.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Emily Cole took the plea by defendant Tony McClain who had broken into the apartment of his girlfriend while she was present. However, he agreed that the sentence could be imposed by some other judge, and the matter came before Judge Lisa M. Chung.
McClain was scheduled to appear before her last May 20 at 8:30 a.m. He didn’t show up at that time.
At 9:20 a.m., Chung noted the failure to appear and voiced some “independent concerns regarding accepting this plea,” noting the nature of McClain’s recent conduct and his prior offenses.
He appeared later—Edmon noted that the record doesn’t reflect the hour and minute—and explained that he got caught up in traffic and that, as “a father and a working man,” he “was rushing for time.”
Explanation Rejected
Those were shoddy excuses, Chung declared, scrapping the plea agreement pursuant to the California Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in People v. Cruz, and ordering McClain’s imprisonment. That opinion says, in footnote 5:
“[I]f the defendant willfully fails to appear for sentencing the trial court may withdraw its approval of the defendant’s plea and impose a sentence in excess of the bargained-for term.”
The text makes reference to “an absconding defendant’s avoidance or ‘waiver’ of the terms of the bargain by flight.”
Edmon wrote:
“To establish a Cruz waiver violation, the evidence must establish that the defendant willfully engaged in prohibited behavior….Here, however, the trial court merely found McClain’s excuse for being late did not constitute ‘good cause.’ The trial court did not find he was willfully late for sentencing. We might be able to infer such a finding, except the trial court expressed its disinclination to honor the plea agreement before it had even heard McClain’s explanation for being late to court. The trial court said it did not agree with the negotiated plea and suggested that had the plea been presented to it, it would not have accepted the plea based on the underlying offenses and McClain’s misdemeanors. We therefore cannot find that the trial court’s refusal to honor the plea agreement was grounded in a finding that McClain willfully was late to court as opposed to its disagreement with the negotiated plea itself.”
Insufficient Evidence
She added:
“And, even under the correct standard, there is insufficient evidence McClain willfully was late to his sentencing hearing. As used in penal statutes, ‘willful’ and ‘willfully’ imply a purpose or willingness to commit the act, that the person knows what he is doing, and intends to do what he is doing.”
The opinion does not order that the plea bargain be enforced. Rather, it directs the Superior Court “to impose the negotiated sentence or to allow Tony McClain to withdraw his plea.”
The case is People v. McClain, B312855.
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