Ceplecha v. Sullivan

998 N.W.2d 351

2023 S.D. 63

Daniel CEPLECHA, Petitioner and Appellant,

v.Dan SULLIVAN, Warden South Dakota State Penitentiary, Respondent and Appellee.

#30228

Supreme Court of South Dakota.

CONSIDERED ON BRIEFS AUGUST 29, 2023

SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEFS RECEIVED SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

OPINION FILED November 29, 2023

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, BENNETT COUNTY, SOUTH DAKOTA, THE HONORABLE MARGO D. NORTHRUP, Judge

RYAN KOLBECK, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Attorney for petitioner and appellant.

MARTY J. JACKLEY, Attorney General, PAUL S. SWEDLUND, Solicitor General, Pierre, South Dakota, Attorneys for respondent and appellee.

SALTER, Justice

[¶1.] Daniel Ceplecha is serving a life sentence in prison after he pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus claiming he is actually innocent and alleging his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by not assuring Ceplecha understood his right to assert a self-defense claim. The habeas court granted the State’s¹ motion to dismiss, concluding that we had previously considered Ceplecha’s claims on direct appeal, which precluded their relitigation under the doctrine of res judicata. The court then issued a certificate of probable cause, and Ceplecha appeals. We affirm.

Factual and Procedural History

The killing of Moses Red Bear and the plea agreement

[¶2.] Ceplecha and his son, Rangler, were originally charged with alternative counts of first and second-degree murder along with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the 2016 death of Moses Red Bear at the Ceplechas’ home in Martin. Law enforcement reports submitted to the circuit court indicated that Red Bear had been shot seven or eight times with two different firearms—twice in the right thigh, three times in the chest and abdomen area, once behind the right ear, once between Red Bear’s eyes, and a possible shot in the left hand. A witness present in the home was in a nearby bathroom and heard the Ceplechas berating and shooting Red Bear.

[¶3.] After they had killed Red Bear, Ceplecha and his son carried his body to a rural area and set it on fire in an apparent attempt to conceal their crime. However, the witness at the Ceplecha home had promptly reported the killing, and police officers apprehended the Ceplechas within hours and recovered Red Bear’s badly disfigured body.

[¶4.] Ceplecha spoke to a Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) special agent and advised that Red Bear had been staying at his home. Ceplecha said he had confronted Red Bear about stealing some items and cash and told him to leave. However, Red Bear returned a short while later, and Ceplecha struck him in the nose, causing it to bleed. After this point, Ceplecha claimed he had blacked out and had no memory of anything until he was apprehended by law enforcement officers at a local convenience store. At no time during the interview did Ceplecha claim to have shot Red Bear in self-defense.

[¶5.] And virtually all of the other evidence adduced cast serious doubt upon Ceplecha’s claim that he had blacked out. In addition to the witness’s report that Ceplecha had acted with his son to torment and kill Red Bear, surveillance footage from the convenience store shows the Ceplechas, shortly after the killing, stopping for sandwiches, coffee, and, portentously, a lighter en route to disposing of Red Bear’s body. The surveillance video also shows the Ceplechas later returned to the convenience store where, the DCI special agent observed, Ceplecha was not in a "blackout condition" as he paid for coffee and conversed with the clerk.

[¶6.] Ultimately, Ceplecha and his son each pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter as part of written plea agreements with the State, which agreed to dismiss the murder and conspiracy charges. Neither agreement imposed any limit upon the exercise of the circuit court’s sentencing discretion. As part of his plea agreement, Ceplecha agreed that the circuit court could use a 77-page exhibit containing police reports and investigative material to find a factual basis for his plea. Among other things, the exhibit contained a report of Ceplecha’s interview with the DCI special agent and a report of an interview of the witness who had been in the Ceplechas’ home when they killed Red Bear. The change of plea and effort to withdraw the guilty plea

[¶7.] During a joint change of plea hearing with his son, the circuit court advised Ceplecha that the maximum punishment for first-degree manslaughter was life in prison without the possibility of parole. The court also explained the extent of its sentencing discretion and Ceplecha’s risk associated with the plea agreement:

The court: And the Court could in fact impose the maximum sentence which is life imprisonment. Do you understand?

Ceplecha: Yes, Your Honor.

The court: And if the Court does impose life imprisonment and chooses to do that, there is a statute that indicates that you would not be eligible for parole. Do you understand all of that?

Ceplecha: Yes, Your Honor.

[¶8.] The circuit court told Ceplecha that the feature of manslaughter that refers to a killing "without design to effect a death" was not, itself, an affirmative element of the offense.² But the court noted that under the parties’ plea agreement, Ceplecha was acknowledging that he had killed Red Bear without any design to effect death. The court accepted Ceplecha’s guilty plea after finding it was knowing and voluntary and supported by a factual basis.³

[¶9.] Over two months after the change of plea hearing and approximately one month before the scheduled sentencing hearing, Ceplecha and his son submitted a joint, pro se letter to the court in which they purported to withdraw their guilty pleas. Among their stated reasons for reconsidering their guilty pleas, the Ceplechas wrote, "We are not guilty of the charges." This claim of innocence is the same one presented in the current habeas action, and the circuit court directly addressed it.

[¶10.] Treating the Ceplechas’ letter as a pro se motion to withdraw their guilty pleas, the circuit court conducted an evidentiary hearing at which both Ceplecha and his son testified. During his testimony, Ceplecha admitted to lying about blacking out and claimed he acted in self-defense after Red Bear was "swinging a gun at me." Ceplecha agreed with the prosecutor that it was the "first time [he had] told the State" that he had shot Red Bear in self-defense and added the incongruent justification, "Why would I incriminate myself."⁴

[¶11.] In a post hearing brief, John Murphy, Ceplecha’s court-appointed attorney, argued that his client’s request to withdraw his guilty plea was not frivolous, theorizing that Ceplecha may have believed that the manslaughter offense and his self-defense claim were one in the same because neither, as alleged, contemplated an intentional killing:

It is conceivable that Mr. Ceplecha believed that self-defense was not a defense available to him for a charge of first degree manslaughter because the charge already contained the unintended killing element. In essence, it appears Mr. Ceplecha is arguing that he believed self-defense was subsumed into, or negated by, the elements of first degree manslaughter.

[¶12.] The circuit court denied the Ceplechas’ request to withdraw their guilty pleas in a written memorandum opinion. The court cited the principle that allowed it to deny a motion to withdraw a guilty plea where it is frivolous, meaning the defendant "fails to provide a tenable reason why withdrawal should be permitted, a reason the court deems fair and just." See State v. Schmidt, 2012 S.D. 77, ¶ 16, 825 N.W.2d 889, 894 (cleaned up). Among the factors the court considered in its fair and just analysis was "[w]hether the defendant asserts he is innocent[.]"

[¶13.] In this regard, the circuit court observed that, besides their belated claims of self-defense, "the Defendants produced no evidence to support their apparent claim of self-defense." The court continued:

Neither [of the Ceplechas] asserted innocence at the change of plea hearing. The record which was presented con-tained not a shred of evidence that Red Bear had a gun. There is substantial evidence, however, that the Defendants shot Red Bear several times with separate firearms. On top of that, there is overwhelming evidence that the Defendants attempted to cover up their crime by cleaning the scene and burning the body. The Defendants’ testimony regarding self-defense is simply not credible.

(Emphasis added.)

[¶14.] The circuit court also commented that the favorable aspect of the plea agreement that "took the mandatory life sentence off the table" was negotiated by defense counsel amid "very strong" evidence of murder. Still too, the court cited its careful efforts to assure a provident guilty plea for each of the Ceplechas and its reassertion that the pleas were knowing and voluntary. In the court’s view:

[T]he real reason for the Defendants’ motion to withdraw plea is not actual innocence, but instead the desire for a "do over" and chance to go to trial because they might get a life sentence.⁵ This is not a fair and just reason to withdraw a guilty plea.

[¶15.] At a subsequent joint sentencing hearing, the circuit court imposed life sentences upon each of the Ceplechas.

The direct appeal

[¶16.] Ceplecha and his son each appealed and argued that the circuit court had abused its discretion by not allowing them to withdraw their guilty pleas.⁶ We rejected the claim, endorsing the circuit court’s finding that the Ceplechas’ testimony was self-serving and "simply not credible." State v. Ceplecha, 2020 S.D. 11, ¶¶ 52-53, 940 N.W.2d 682, 696–97 (Ceplecha I). We noted, as the circuit court had, the delayed nature of the Ceplechas’ self-defense claims and the absence of any other evidence to support them. Id.

[¶17.] We also agreed with the circuit court’s assessment that the guilty pleas had been knowing and voluntary, stating that...