AI Generated Opinion Summaries

This summary was computer-generated without any editorial revision. It is not official, has not been checked for accuracy, and is NOT citable.

Facts

• The Defendant entered a no contest plea to charges of attempt to commit second-degree murder, aggravated assault (deadly weapon), and attempt to commit aggravated battery (deadly weapon). He was sentenced to a total of twelve and a half years followed by two years of parole. The Defendant sought to withdraw his plea to the aggravated assault charge, claiming he was not informed by his counsel that the conviction could qualify as a serious violent offense, which would limit his eligibility for meritorious deductions under the Earned Meritorious Deductions Act (EMDA) (RP 103-107, 121, 132-135, 138, 142).

Procedural History

• [Not applicable or not found]

Parties' Submissions

• Defendant-Appellant: Argued that the district court erred in denying his motion to withdraw his plea due to his counsel’s ineffective assistance. He claimed he was not informed that his conviction for aggravated assault could qualify as a serious violent offense under the EMDA, affecting his eligibility for good time credit (MIO 1, 5-13; DS unnumbered page 4).
• Plaintiff-Appellee: The State's position is not directly detailed in the provided text, but it can be inferred that the State opposed the Defendant's motion to withdraw his plea and argued for the affirmation of the convictions and sentence.

Legal Issues

• Whether the district court erred in denying the Defendant's motion to withdraw his plea based on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.
• Whether the Defendant was prejudiced by his counsel's failure to inform him of the potential classification of his aggravated assault conviction as a serious violent offense under the EMDA.

Disposition

• The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s order denying the Defendant’s motion to withdraw his plea and affirmed the Defendant’s convictions.

Reasons

• The Court, per Judge Michael D. Bustamante, with Judges James J. Wechsler and J. Miles Hanisee concurring, held that the Defendant failed to demonstrate that he was prejudiced by his counsel's alleged ineffective assistance. The Court assumed that the Defendant's counsel did not inform him that his conviction could qualify as a serious violent offense and that the Defendant had expressed he did not want to plead to a charge that could be classified as such. Despite these assumptions, the Court found that the Defendant did not establish that, but for his counsel's deficiencies, he would not have entered the plea and would have opted to go to trial instead. The Court also noted that the Defendant did not seek to set aside his entire plea but only the plea to the aggravated assault charge, which is not permissible as a defendant cannot accept parts of a plea agreement while rejecting others. The decision to affirm was based on the lack of demonstrated prejudice and the principle that a plea bargain must be accepted or rejected in its entirety (MIO 2-13; RP 103-107, 121, 132-135, 138, 142).