Rodriguez v. State

116 N.E.3d 515

Alberto Baiza RODRIGUEZ, Appellant-Petitioner,

v.STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Respondent

Court of Appeals Case No. 20A03-1704-CR-724

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

FILED December 14, 2018

OPINION ON REMAND

Crone, Judge.

Case Summary

[1] In our prior opinion in this case, Rodriguez v. State , 91 N.E.3d 1033 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), trans. granted , we held that the trial court erred in ruling that Alberto Baiza Rodriguez had waived his right to seek modification of his fixed sentence imposed pursuant to a plea agreement in 2016 for crimes committed in 2015. We based our holding on a 2014 statutory amendment which unambiguously provides that "[a] person may not waive the right to sentence modification under this section as part of a plea agreement." Ind. Code § 35-38-1-17(l) (2014). Our supreme court granted transfer. The court did not hold that our interpretation of the statute was erroneous and affirm the trial court's ruling; instead, the court remanded with instructions to reconsider our holding in light of the legislature's 2018 amendments to Indiana Code Sections 35-38-1-17 and 35-35-1-2.

[2] We invited the parties to submit supplemental materials, which they did. Rodriguez argues that the 2018 amendments are not intended to apply retroactively, and, even if they were, such an application would unconstitutionally impair his contractual rights under his plea agreement with the State. We agree with Rodriguez. Therefore, we reaffirm our original holding, reverse the trial court's denial of Rodriguez's motion to modify his sentence, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Facts and Procedural History

[3] Based on a March 2015 incident, the State charged Rodriguez with several offenses and with being a habitual vehicle substance offender. In January 2016, Rodriguez and the State entered into a written plea agreement in which Rodriguez agreed to plead guilty to all but one of the charges and serve seventy-two months in the Department of Correction on work release, and the State agreed to dismiss the remaining charge and not file additional charges. The trial court accepted the agreement and sentenced Rodriguez accordingly.

[4] In January 2017, Rodriguez filed a motion to modify his sentence on the basis of family hardship and asserted that the then-current version of Indiana Code Section 35-38-1-17(e) permitted the trial court to modify his remaining sentence to home detention:

At any time after:

(1) a convicted person begins serving the person's sentence; and

(2) the court obtains a report from the department of correction concerning the convicted person's conduct while imprisoned;the court may reduce or suspend the sentence and impose a sentence that the court was authorized to impose at the time of sentencing. The court must incorporate its reasons in the record.

Rodriguez asked the trial court to order a report from the work release program and set the matter for hearing, which it did.

[5] At the hearing, the trial court acknowledged that the work release report was "very outstanding[,]" Tr. Vol. 2 at 7, but ultimately it issued an order concluding that it did "not have the authority to modify the sentence because the court accepted the parties' plea agreement which requires the defendant to serve the sentence in Work Release." The court referenced Indiana Code Section 35-35-3-3(e), which states, "If the court accepts a plea agreement, it shall be bound by its terms." The court also quoted the then-current version of Indiana Code Section 35-38-1-17(l) :

A person may not waive the right to sentence modification under this section as part of a plea agreement. Any purported waiver of the right to sentence modification under this section in a plea agreement is invalid and unenforceable as against public policy. This subsection does not prohibit the finding of a waiver of the right to sentence modification for any other reason , including failure to comply with the provisions of this section[, which limit the number of times a person may file a petition for sentence modification without the consent of the prosecuting attorney].

(Emphasis added.) This provision had been added to the statute in 2014. The court concluded that the italicized phrase "applies to the specific terms of a plea agreement that the court has accepted[,]" and thus "entering into a binding plea agreement waives the right to seek or receive a modification of sentence."

[6] Rodriguez appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in ruling that he had waived his right to seek modification of his sentence. We addressed his argument as follows:

It is hornbook law that a plea agreement is contractual in nature, binding both the defendant and the State. E.g. , St. Clair v. State , 901 N.E.2d 490, 492 (Ind. 2009). "Bargaining between the State and a pleading defendant will have produced for court consideration an agreement that either specifies a precise penalty or leaves some or all of the specifics to the judgment of the trial court." Id. at 493. "[I]t is up to the trial court to accept or reject the plea agreement as filed." Badger v. State , 637 N.E.2d 800, 802 (Ind. 1994). As noted above, once a trial court accepts a plea agreement, it is bound by its terms. Ind. Code § 35-35-3-3(e).

In years past, the legislature placed significant limitations on a trial court's authority to modify a sentence imposed after a trial. A trial court could reduce or suspend a defendant's sentence within the first three hundred sixty-five days (commonly known as "shock probation"), but after that point most reductions or suspensions were subject to approval of the prosecuting attorney. See Ind. Code § 35-38-1-17 (formerly 35-38-1-23) (historical statutes). With respect to plea agreements containing a fixed sentence, our supreme court held as follows:

Once it has accepted a plea agreement recommending a specific sentence, ... the terms of the agreement constrain the discretion the court would otherwise employ in sentencing. Even after a sentence has been imposed pursuant to a plea agreement containing a recommendation of a specific term of years, that sentence may not be altered upon subsequent motion, such as under Ind. Code § 35-38-1-23 for "shock probation," unless the agreement contained a specific reservation of such authority for the trial judge. [ State ex rel. Goldsmith v. Marion Cty. Super. Ct. , 275 Ind. 545, 551-52, 419 N.E.2d 109, 114 (1981) ].

Goldsmith and its progeny each uphold the principle that a deal is a deal. Once it has accepted a plea agreement, the sentencing court possesses only that degree of discretion provided in the plea agreement with regard to imposing an initial sentence or altering it later.

Pannarale v. State , 638 N.E.2d 1247, 1248 (Ind. 1994).

Since 2014, however, the legislature has gradually relaxed the restrictions on sentence modification, allowing trial courts to reduce or suspend sentences for nonviolent offenders "[a]t any time" without prosecutorial approval in certain circumstances. Ind. Code § 35-38-1-17(e), - (j). The legislature also added what is now Section 35-38-1-17(l), which, as mentioned above, provides that "[a] person may not waive the right to sentence modification under this section as part of a plea agreement" and that "[a]ny purported waiver of the right to sentence modification under this section in a plea agreement is invalid and unenforceable as against public policy." Section 35-38-1-17(l) also provides that it "does not prohibit the finding of a waiver of the right to sentence modification for any other reason, including failure to comply with the provisions" of the statute.

In this case, Rodriguez's plea agreement contained a specific reservation of authority for the trial court to modify his sentence, but only in the event that he was incarcerated, which he was not.... The trial court essentially concluded that by entering into a plea agreement with a fixed sentence to be served on work release, Rodriguez waived the right to modification of that sentence. But that is precisely what Section 35-38-1-17(l) prohibits in no uncertain terms as a violation of public policy; it does not distinguish between implicit or explicit waivers, and we may not read such a distinction into the statute. [ N.D.F. v. State , 775 N.E.2d 1085, 1088 (Ind. 2002) ].

The State argues,

In plea bargains, the State is often agreeing to dismiss other (often, more serious) charges or to forego filing additional charges in exchange for the certainty of a definite sentence or definite limits on sentencing options that ensure the defendant will receive no less than a certain sentence. If that fixed sentence can be modified at any time, or if the negotiated limits on sentencing discretion can be ignored at any time, then the agreement is purely illusory, and the State is not receiving the benefit for which it bargained. The State will be unwilling to enter into plea agreements if they will not be enforced.

Appellee's Br. at 12. We acknowledge the State's concern, but as another panel of this Court stated in response to a similar argument in a recent case,

the statute says what it says, and we are bound to interpret and apply statutes in a way that fulfills the legislature's intent. Unless and until the General Assembly clarifies the statute at issue, it clearly and unambiguous[ly] states that offenders "may not waive the right to sentence modification ... as part of a plea agreement."

State v. Stafford , 86 N.E.3d 190, 193 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017) (quoting Ind. Code § 35-38-1-17(l) ), trans. granted .

The State also points to Section 35-35-3-3(e), which provides that a trial court "shall be bound" by the terms of a plea agreement that it accepts, and argues that if the legislature "had intended to change this law and allow modifications of fixed-sentence pleas, it would have said so directly." Appellee's Br. at 13-14. We think that the legislature said so directly in Section 35-38-1-17(l). The State also mentions Section 35-38-1-17(e

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