Green v. State

898 S.E.2d 500

GREEN

v.The STATE.

S23A0840

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: February 20, 2024

Superior Court, Fulton County, Craig L. Schwall, Judge

Lauren Beth Shubow, Steven Eric Phillips, Office of the Public Defender, 100 Peachtree Street NW, Suite 1600, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Meghan Hobbs Hill, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Fani T. Willis, District Attorney, Kevin Christopher Armstrong, Senior A.D.A., Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, 136 Pryor Street SW, Third Floor, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Aslean Zachary Eaglin, A.D.A., Fulton County District, Attorney’s Office, 136 Pryor Street SW, Suite C-640, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellee.

Pinson, Justice.

Appellant Donald Berry Green entered a guilty plea for felony murder and aggravated assault in connection with the shooting death of Andre Winter.¹ The record shows that Green entered that plea of his own free choice, and that when he entered it, he was aware of the relevant circumstances and the likely consequences of pleading guilty, including the charges to which he was pleading, the various rights that he would waive by doing so, and the range of punishments to which he would be exposed.

Under any reasonable reading of United States Supreme Court precedent, that record gave the trial court an adequate basis for accepting Green’s guilty plea as a matter of federal constitutional law, because the record as a whole showed that Green's plea was both voluntary and intelligent. But a line of our decisions over the past two decades would nonetheless call this plea into question because Green was not expressly advised on the record of one of three specific rights that were listed in Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969), as examples of the rights someone waives when they enter a guilty plea. Under our line of decisions, accepting a guilty plea when the record does not specifically indicate that the defendant was informed that he was waiving all three of these "Boykin rights"—the right to a jury trial, the right to confront adverse witnesses, and the right to be protected from compelled self-incrimination—is a violation of federal constitutional law that requires automatic reversal of the plea. The problem is that neither Boykin itself nor any Supreme Court decision that followed it even hints at that formalistic rule, and virtually every court across the country to have considered it—federal and state alike—has rejected that reading of Supreme Court precedent. In fact, in Goodman v. State, 249 Ga. 11, 12-13 (1), 287 S.E.2d 26 (1982), even this Court rejected that rule—a fact this Court failed to notice when we started applying this automatic-reversal rule in the years following Goodman.

[1, 2] Today, we correct course. After careful review of the relevant United States Supreme Court precedent, which binds our Court as to questions of federal law, we conclude that our decisions reversing a guilty plea because the record does not expressly indicate that the defendant was informed that he was waiving each of the so-called "Boykin rights" is in conflict with Supreme Court precedent and must be overruled. Our law thus returns to the standard outlined in Goodman, which follows Supreme Court precedent: a guilty plea is valid as a matter of federal constitutional law if the record affirmatively shows that it is voluntary and intelligent under the totality of the circumstances. Trial courts must continue to accept guilty pleas only with great care and discernment, following the procedures set out in our Uniform Rule of Superior Court 33.8 and otherwise ensuring that the defendant entering a plea does so voluntarily and with awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences. But the failure to specif- ically advise the defendant of his right against self-incrimination—or any of the three rights listed in Boykin—on the record does not require the reversal of a guilty plea as a matter of federal constitutional law if the record as a whole shows that the defendant’s plea was voluntary and intelligent.

Under this corrected standard of federal constitutional law, Green’s claim here fails because the record as a whole shows that Green’s guilty plea was voluntary and intelligent. So we affirm Green’s convictions.

I. Background

Green entered a guilty plea for felony murder and aggravated assault in connection with the shooting death of Andre Winter. At Green’s plea colloquy, the trial court informed Green of several of the rights he was waiving by pleading guilty:

COURT: By pleading guilty, you give up the right to a jury trial on this case. You also give up the right to cross-examine any witnesses the State puts up. You would give up the right to challenge any evidence the State may put up. You also give up the right to present witnesses and evidence in your favor if you choose to do that. And finally you would have the right to testify if you choose to do that. You would also have a right to appeal a jury verdict if it came back guilty in this case. Do you understand by pleading guilty on these two counts only, you give up those rights?

GREEN: Yes, I do.

COURT: Your waiver is made intelligently and knowingly in this case?

GREEN: Yes, it is.

COURT: You understand the facts of the charges against you?

GREEN: Yes, I do.

Green was sentenced to life in prison.

About ten years later, Green began to file motions seeking an out-of-time appeal and other relief. During a hearing on Green’s motion for out-of-time-appeal, plea counsel testified about her discussions with Green before the plea. She did not specifically recall her representation of Green, but she testified about her general practices with plea clients. Plea counsel testified that, among other things, she advises such clients of the rights they waive by pleading guilty. As plea counsel was naming the particular rights that she advises clients about, the State objected that this testimony was outside the scope of the hearing, since the hearing concerned whether Green had been made aware of his appellate rights. The trial court sustained the objection. That colloquy went as follows:

Q: All right. Did you have a general practice in 2000 about what you would advise clients regarding a plea?

A: Yes.

Q: What would you advise them?

A: That they give up their rights to trial. They give up their rights to confrontation. They give up –

STATE: Your Honor, I would object to this testimony. It’s sort of outside the scope of what the issue is before the Court. The issue … before [the] Court is whether [plea counsel] talked to Mr. Green about his appellate rights or made any efforts to discover what his wishes were with regard to those.

COURT: Why don’t we get to that point, please?

The hearing went on, and plea counsel never revisited the specific rights she discusses with her plea clients.

Plea counsel also submitted an affidavit in support of Green’s motion for out-of-time appeal. In the affidavit, plea counsel testified substantially as she did at the hearing:

My general practice has always been to discuss fully [with] each Defendant what the Plea offer is from the State: if there is any type of Negotiated Plea and a non Negotiated Plea. I would also discuss the rights they give up by entering a Plea of course. I would discuss any defenses for the trial, the evidence, the witnesses, and any Motions…. In general I would advise what rights you give up by entering a Guilty Plea.

The trial court entered a final disposition leaving unchanged the sentence for the two counts to which Green initially pled guilty but dismissing the remaining charges.² Green never moved to withdraw his guilty plea, see Tyner v. State, 289 Ga. 592, 594 (2), 714 S.E.2d 577 (2011), overruled on other grounds by Lejeune v. McLaughlin, 296 Ga. 291, 766 S.E.2d 803 (2014) ("Lejeune I") ("A defendant who hopes to appeal successfully from a guilty plea is not required to first file a motion to withdraw the plea." (cleaned up)), but timely filed this appeal from the final judgment.

II. Analysis

[3–5] Pleading guilty to a crime is a "grave and solemn act." Brady v. United. States, 397 U.S. 742, 748 (I), 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970). A guilty plea is not only the defendant’s admission in open court that he committed the crimes he has been charged with. but also his consent to having a judgment of conviction entered against him without a trial—a waiver of his constitutional right to a jury trial and attendant constitutional protections. See id. In light of the guilty plea’s nature and its consequences, as a matter of federal constitutional law the plea must be both voluntary (made of the defendant's own free choice) and intelligent (made with awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences). See id. If it is not, the plea is obtained in violation of federal due process. See McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 466 (I), 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969).

In Boykin, the United States Supreme Court held that a court may not presume a guilty plea was voluntary and intelligent based on a "silent record," 395 U.S. at 243, 89 S.Ct. 1709. The next com4 term, the Court explained that Boykin had added a "requirement that the record must affirmatively disclose that a defendant who pleaded guilty entered his plea understandingly and voluntarily." Brady, 397 U.S. at 747, 90 S.Ct. 1463 (citing Boykin, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274).

The vast majority of jurisdictions across the country have understood Boykin to impose only a procedural requirement: that a trial court accepting a guilty plea must ensure that the record, viewed as a whole, shows that the defendant’s plea was voluntary and intelligent. In Georgia, however, Boykin’s procedural requirement has been...