Opinion
Docket No. 52777.
Decided November 16, 1981.
Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Robert A. Derengoski, Solicitor General, Earl H. Morgan, Jr., Prosecuting Attorney, and Norman R. Hayes, Senior Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
Duckwall, Nowak Connolly-Poniatowski, for defendant on appeal.
Defendant, Raymond Weir, pled guilty to unarmed robbery, MCL 750.530; MSA 28.798, and was sentenced to from 5 to 15 years imprisonment. Defendant appealed to this Court claiming that his plea was involuntary because his attorney promised a more lenient sentence. We remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on defendant's claim in accordance with People v Hall, 399 Mich. 288, 291; 249 N.W.2d 62 (1976). Pursuant to our order, the trial court held a hearing on April 6, 1981, and denied defendant's motion to withdraw his plea. Defendant appeals, claiming that his attorney's promise of a two-year sentence made his plea involuntary.
A guilty plea may be involuntary where unfulfilled promises induce a defendant to plead guilty. People v Schirle, 105 Mich. App. 381, 385; 306 N.W.2d 520 (1981). An unfulfilled promise or misleading statement by defense counsel can require reversal of defendant's guilty plea. Id. Normally, where a defendant states on the record that no promises, inducements, coercion, or other undue influences have been offered to him or brought to bear upon him, he will be held to his record denial. People v Sanders, 54 Mich. App. 541, 544; 221 N.W.2d 243 (1974), People v Smith, 52 Mich. App. 731, 736; 218 N.W.2d 151 (1974), lv den 394 Mich. 757 (1975). In Hall, supra, the Supreme Court stated that the trial judge, not the Court of Appeals, should decide if the defendant's plea was induced by an unfulfilled promise of leniency.
At the hearing on April 6, 1981, the defendant testified that one of his trial attorneys told him that if he pled guilty he would receive a two-year sentence. Both his trial attorneys denied making any promise concerning defendant's sentence. The trial court denied defendant's motion to withdraw his plea, and we cannot substitute our judgment for that of the trial court in determining whether the plea was induced by a promise. Id.
Affirmed.