Opinion
Case No. 20071003-CA.
Filed December 26, 2008.
Appeal from the Third District, Salt Lake Department, 051906181 The Honorable Randall N. Skanchy.
Hakeem Ishola, West Valley City, for Appellant.
Mark L. Shurtleff and Laura B. Dupaix, Salt Lake City, for Appellee.
Before Judges Greenwood, Thorne, and Orme.
OPINION
¶ 1 Wolfgango Ruiz timely sought to withdraw his guilty plea. His motion was granted. On reconsideration by a different judge, that disposition was rescinded and the motion was denied. We reverse that denial.
BACKGROUND
¶ 2 Ruiz is an illegal alien. He was charged with sexual abuse of a child, a second degree felony. Ruiz retained counsel to represent him, and he pled guilty to a reduced count of attempted sexual abuse of a child, a third degree felony. The written plea agreement executed by Ruiz indicated that the potential sentence was a term of zero-to-five years in prison.
¶ 3 Two months after pleading guilty, Ruiz retained his current counsel. His new attorney filed a motion to withdraw Ruiz's guilty plea, alleging that former counsel's ineffectiveness rendered the plea involuntary. Ruiz alleged in an affidavit that his former counsel misled him into believing that the original second degree felony he was facing required a minimum mandatory sentence of five years and that he only entered a guilty plea to the third degree felony because his counsel told him he might get no jail time. Further, Ruiz alleged that his former counsel dissuaded him from seeking the advice of an immigration attorney before he pled guilty and told him that he would not be deported. The affidavit additionally claimed that upon later seeking the advice of an immigration attorney, that attorney told him he would most certainly be deported as a consequence of his plea. Ruiz asserts that had his former counsel correctly advised him of the immigration consequences of the guilty plea, he would not have pled guilty.
¶ 4 Judge Fuchs ruled that Ruiz's former counsel misadvised him of the immigration consequences of his guilty plea and that this was a legitimate basis for withdrawing his guilty plea. At the hearing on the motion, the State requested additional time to present testimony from Ruiz's former counsel. Judge Fuchs denied this request, specifically stating that "everybody's been given an opportunity to respond to this and we're stuck with the evidence as it exists and the affidavits or the memorandums as they exist."
We note that on the date the hearing was first scheduled, the hearing was continued because the State was not ready to proceed.
¶ 5 Notwithstanding Judge Fuchs's ruling, the State filed a motion to reconsider in which it claimed that the prosecutor had spoken to Ruiz's former counsel, who denied misrepresenting the immigration consequences of the guilty plea and, predictably, denied being ineffective. The State argued that Ruiz had "misrepresented the facts by failing to produce testimony from [former counsel] at the motion [to withdraw] hearing, even though [Ruiz] was aware that [former counsel] denied making the statements at issue." The State attached to its motion an affidavit from Ruiz's former counsel, as well as a letter that former counsel had sent to Ruiz's current counsel months earlier, which affidavit and letter generally denied any wrongdoing.
The State's argument that Ruiz was obligated to put on evidence supporting the State's position as well as evidence supporting his position was not supported with citation to any authority.
¶ 6 Ruiz opposed the motion, arguing that the State had been given several opportunities to present evidence to counter Ruiz's affidavit but failed to do so. Judge Fuchs set a hearing on the motion to reconsider but retired before the hearing was held. Judge Skanchy was then assigned to the case.
¶ 7 Judge Skanchy heard the motion to reconsider over Ruiz's objection that the matter had already been litigated numerous times and decided by Judge Fuchs and that the State had had ample opportunity to present its evidence in a timely fashion but failed to do so. Judge Skanchy decided to hear Ruiz's former counsel's testimony.
¶ 8 Judge Skanchy then heard Ruiz's former counsel's testimony. Counsel claimed that he and Ruiz discussed the immigration consequences of the plea some thirty to fifty times, that they discussed "immigration from day one," and that he consistently told Ruiz "he would almost certainly be deported" if he pled guilty. Based on this testimony, Judge Skanchy granted the motion to reconsider, rescinded Judge Fuchs's order granting the motion to withdraw the guilty plea, and denied Ruiz's motion to withdraw his guilty plea.
The anomalous nature of a lawyer telling a client the same thing as many as fifty times, in a span of five months or so, was noted at oral argument before this court.
¶ 9 Ruiz thereafter filed a motion to arrest judgment on the basis that the prosecutor in this case had been arrested at the Salt Lake City Airport for possession of cocaine, asserting that the prosecutor's handling of the instant case was somehow linked to his cocaine use. Ruiz also claimed that, under the "law of the case" doctrine, Judge Skanchy lacked jurisdiction to overrule Judge Fuchs's decision allowing withdrawal of Ruiz's guilty plea. Judge Skanchy denied the motion to arrest judgment. Ruiz was then sentenced to a zero-to-five-year prison term, which was suspended in favor of 365 days in jail and thirty-six months of probation. He now appeals.
ANALYSIS
¶ 10 We are not convinced that the law of the case doctrine precluded Judge Skanchy from overruling Judge Fuchs's decision. The law of the case doctrine is essentially a matter of judicial economy rather than jurisdiction. See Amica Mut. Ins. Co. v. Schettler, 768 P.2d 950, 969 (Utah Ct.App. 1989), cert. denied, 109 Utah Adv. Rep. 39 (1993). The rationale underlying the doctrine "is that in the interest of economy of time and efficiency of procedure, it is desirable to avoid the delays and the difficulties involved in repetitious contentions and rulings upon the same proposition in the same case." Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, a judge can change his or her mind any time up until the entry of final judgment, which is true even if the judge has taken over the case from another judge, see Trembly v. Mrs. Fields Cookies, 884 P.2d 1306, 1310-11 (Utah Ct.App. 1994), as "a trial court is not inexorably bound by its own precedents." Salt Lake City Corp. v. James Constructors, Inc., 761 P.2d 42, 45 (Utah Ct.App. 1988) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). See Trembly, 884 P.2d at 1311. The doctrine "d[oes] not prevent a different judge from revisiting an interim order issued in a case by a prior judge,"Interlake Distribs., Inc. v. Old Mill Towne, 954 P.2d 1295, 1299 (Utah Ct. App. 1998), because, as correctly pointed out by the State, "`the two judges, while different persons, constitute a single judicial office for law of the case purposes.'" Trembly, 884 P.2d at 1311 n. 4 (quotingGillmor v. Wright, 850 P.2d 431, 439-40 (Utah 1993) (Orme, J., concurring)). Thus, Judge Skanchy had the jurisdiction to entertain the State's motion to reconsider. Whether he ruled properly in granting it is another matter.
¶ 11 Because "[t]he entry of a guilty plea involves the waiver of several important constitutional rights" and "because the prosecution will generally be unable to show that it will suffer any significant prejudice if the plea is withdrawn, a presentence motion to withdraw a guilty plea should, in general, be liberally granted." State v. Gallegos, 738 P.2d 1040, 1041-42 (Utah 1987). See Grimmett v. State, 2007 UT 11, ¶ 10, 152 P.3d 306. It is true that Ruiz had the burden to establish that there were grounds to withdraw his plea.See State v. Thurston, 781 P.2d 1296, 1301 (Utah Ct.App. 1989) (stating that the party "who would set a plea aside has the burden of proving that there is a legal ground for doing so"). But that burden is relatively low in a presentence setting. Cf. Gallegos, 738 P.2d at 1042 (suggesting that the decision for granting leave to withdraw a plea should turn on whether there is "a fair and just reason for granting leave to withdraw the plea"). Ruiz met his burden by setting forth in his affidavit that he was not informed of the immigration consequences of his plea.
¶ 12 Therefore, the narrow question before us is whether Judge Skanchy erred in hearing the State's motion to reconsider and then allowing the State to put on new evidence after Judge Fuchs had already ruled that Ruiz could withdraw his plea and that no more evidence could be presented. A trial court's decision to address the merits of a motion to reconsider is reviewed for an abuse of discretion, see Tschaggeny v. Milbank Ins. Co., 2007 UT 37, ¶¶ 15-16, 163 P.3d 615, as is its decision to deny a motion to withdraw a guilty plea, see State v. Martinez, 2001 UT 12, ¶ 14, 26 P.3d 203.
¶ 13 "While trial judges generally are not required to give reasons for discretionary rulings, some explanation, however brief, greatly assists in appellate review, and may prevent unnecessary reversal where facts are close and support for a ruling is not patent from the record."City of Phoenix v. Geyler, 697 P.2d 1073, 1079 n. 3 (Ariz. 1985). For instance, in cases involving attorney fees awards, "[w]e have consistently encouraged trial courts to make findings to explain the factors which they considered relevant." Bell v. Bell, 810 P.2d 489, 494 (Utah Ct.App. 1991) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original). "To permit meaningful [appellate] review of [a] trial court's discretionary ruling," id., a trial judge's explanation is helpful in evaluating whether discretion has been abused or soundly exercised because it is hard to tell just from an unexplained act whether a judge has acted arbitrarily or properly, see Geyler, 697 P.2d at 1079 n. 3.
¶ 14 When a second judge announces a reversal of a prior judge's order, it is doubly important for the second judge to articulate a reason for the change. This is all the more true in the instant context, given the many directives that presentence motions to withdraw guilty pleas should be liberally granted. In this case, Judge Skanchy did not articulate why he was allowing the State to present new evidence, after the State had been given multiple opportunities to present such evidence and after Judge Fuchs had rebuffed the State's request for yet a further opportunity to do so. When Judge Fuchs had specifically ruled that "everybody's been given an opportunity to respond to this and we're stuck with the evidence as it exists and the affidavits or the memorandums as they exist," it was especially incumbent on Judge Skanchy to explain why a change was in order and why new evidence could be belatedly put on by the State. Absent such explanation on the record, we have no assurance that the change was not merely a function of personal preference on Judge Skanchy's part.
CONCLUSION
¶ 15 The order denying Ruiz's motion to withdraw his guilty plea is vacated, and the prior order granting leave to withdraw the guilty plea stands. The case is remanded to the district court for trial or such other proceedings as may now be in order.
Given our disposition, we need not consider the other issues raised by Ruiz.
¶ 16 WE CONCUR: Pamela T. Greenwood, Presiding Judge, William A. Thorne Jr., Associate Presiding Judge.