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, a non-United States citizen, was arrested for entering the U.S. with a significant amount of marijuana concealed in her vehicle. After waiving a preliminary hearing, she pleaded guilty to a drug offense under a plea agreement that included an eighteen-month suspended sentence to be served on supervised probation. The plea was made with the understanding that deportation was a possibility, but not a certainty, depending on the decision of the Immigration and Naturalization Department. The Defendant later sought to withdraw her guilty plea, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel for not being adequately advised of the immigration consequences of her plea (paras 2-5, 10).

Procedural History

• [Not applicable or not found]

Parties' Submissions

• Defendant-Appellee: Argued that her trial counsel was ineffective for not adequately advising her of the immigration consequences of her guilty plea, which led to her plea not being knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made (para 10).
• Plaintiff-Appellant (State): Contended that trial counsel’s lack of specific memory regarding advice given to the Defendant about immigration consequences was insufficient to establish ineffective assistance of counsel. Additionally, the State argued that the Defendant had not demonstrated that she would not have pled guilty if she had been properly advised (para 14).

Legal Issues

• Whether the Defendant was provided ineffective assistance of counsel due to inadequate advice regarding the immigration consequences of her guilty plea (paras 10, 14).

Disposition

• The district court's decision to grant the Defendant’s motion to withdraw her guilty plea was affirmed (para 47).

Reasons

• The Court of Appeals found that the district court properly considered the Defendant’s motion under Rule 1-060(B)(4) as timely and that the district court had jurisdiction over the matter. The Court also determined that the State had a right to appeal the grant of the Defendant’s motion. The Court affirmed the district court's decision, concluding that the Defendant did not clearly understand the immigration consequences of her plea, which was a virtual certainty of deportation given the charges to which she was pleading. The Court held that any advice that did not convey the message of deportation being virtually certain was deficient, and the district court reasonably concluded that the Defendant was not adequately advised by her counsel. The Court applied the standards from State v. Paredez, which requires defense counsel to advise non-citizen clients of the specific immigration consequences of pleading guilty, including whether deportation would be virtually certain (paras 17-45).