State v. Abraham-Medved

1

2024 S.D. 14

STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. TASHINA ABRAHAM-MEDVED, Defendant and Appellant.

No. 29978-r-PJD

Supreme Court of South Dakota

March 6, 2024

CONSIDERED ON BRIEFS MAY 23, 2023

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE FIFTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT ROBERTS COUNTY, SOUTH DAKOTA THE HONORABLE JON S. FLEMMER Judge

DAVID A. GEYER of Delaney, Nielsen & Sannes, P.C. Sisseton South Dakota Attorneys for appellant.

MARTY J. JACKLEY Attorney General

MATTHEW W. TEMPLAR Assistant Attorney General Pierre, South Dakota Attorneys for appellee.

OPINION

DEVANEY, JUSTICE

[¶1.] In this appeal, the defendant claims the circuit court abused its discretion when it denied her attorney's motion to withdraw without allowing her or her attorney an opportunity to establish good cause for the request. We conclude that the circuit court erred and the defendant has been prejudiced. We therefore reverse and remand for a new sentencing hearing.

Factual and Procedural Background

[¶2.] On August 25, 2021, Tashina Abraham-Medved was charged by complaint with one count of unauthorized ingestion of a schedule I or II controlled substance in violation of SDCL 22-42-5.1. She is from Minnesota, and at the time she was charged in South Dakota, she was under the supervision of the Minnesota Department of Corrections (Minnesota DOC). She requested and received court-appointed counsel in the South Dakota matter and, through counsel, obtained an order granting her a three-day furlough to attend medical appointments in Fargo, North Dakota.

[¶3.] On September 16, 2021, the State filed an information charging Abraham-Medved with the same offense listed in the complaint. At her arraignment, she entered a guilty plea to the charge pursuant to a plea agreement. The record does not contain a transcript of this hearing; however, according to the State, in exchange for her guilty plea, the State agreed to dismiss three unrelated charges, including one from 2015. The parties were free to argue at sentencing, and the terms of the sentence were left to the circuit court's discretion. After accepting Abraham-Medved's plea, the court ordered the completion of a presentence investigation report (PSI), set a date for the sentencing hearing on October 21, 2021, and released her on bond pending sentencing.

[¶4.] While on release, Abraham-Medved failed to attend her interview for the PSI. She also did not appear for sentencing, so the circuit court issued a bench warrant. In April 2022, she was arrested on this warrant and appeared at her sentencing hearing on April 28 with her court-appointed counsel, Robert Doody. At the beginning of the hearing, Doody requested to "be removed from this case" because of "a serious breakdown of communication between" him and Abraham-Medved. The State opposed the request, noting that "[t]he only thing left in this matter is for Miss Abraham Medved to be sentenced." The State further noted that Abraham-Medved had pled guilty pursuant to a plea agreement in September 2021 and "[s]entencing was to be left open with a PSI that was ordered back on September 16th." The State asked the court to "just close up the matter today[.]"

[¶5.] The circuit court did not inquire of either Abraham-Medved or Doody as to the nature of the breakdown in communication. Rather, the court denied Doody's request to withdraw, explaining, "I think that since the matter is set for sentencing I'm not sure what communication there is left to do." Thereafter, the court asked Abraham-Medved whether there was "anything that [she] wanted to say on [her] own behalf before sentencing[,]" and she provided several requests for the court's consideration.

[¶6.] During her statements to the circuit court, Abraham-Medved asked the court to sentence her to treatment, which the court indicated it could not do. She then requested a probationary sentence. She also requested that the court order her South Dakota sentence to run concurrent with her Minnesota sentence. The court then asked Doody for his comments, and he replied, "I believe my client is requesting a suspended execution of sentence at this point. There was a PSI ordered but never completed in this case file." He did not offer any further information or argument.

[¶7.] The State argued for a five-year penitentiary sentence with two years suspended. The State claimed that Abraham-Medved did not appear for court hearings during the pendency of her cases (seemingly referring to cases other than the one at issue) and that at the time of the offense, she was under the supervision of the Minnesota DOC. The State also noted that she had a current warrant for her arrest issued by the Minnesota DOC. In the State's view, departing from presumptive probation was warranted because of her past conduct, including failing to show up for her interview for the PSI in the current matter and failing to appear for the initially scheduled sentencing hearing.

[¶8.] The circuit court commented on Abraham-Medved's failure to stay in contact with her counsel and with court services to complete the PSI. The court reasoned that her failure to stay in contact with counsel and court services "appears" to be "part of the problem that caused Mr. Doody to request to be allowed to withdraw at this point[.]" In regard to an appropriate sentence, the court noted that Abraham-Medved was presumptively entitled to a sentence of probation because the offense to which she pled guilty is a Class 5 felony. However, the court determined that the circumstances warranted departure from presumptive probation because she committed the current felony offense while under the supervision of the Minnesota DOC, she did not attend her PSI interview or appear at the sentencing hearing on October 21, and she did not stay in contact with her court services officer or her attorney. For these reasons, the court noted that she was not a good candidate for community supervision.

[¶9.] The court sentenced Abraham-Medved to five years in the penitentiary with two years suspended on the conditions that she pay costs, including reimbursement for her attorney fees, and that she follow the rules set by DOC. The court gave her credit for time served and also recommended "that [she] be allowed to participate in [an] alcohol and chemical dependency evaluation, treatment and aftercare while under [DOC] supervision." Finally, the court ordered that her sentence run concurrent to any sentences she may have to serve in Minnesota or to any other sentences that may be imposed in South Dakota.

[¶10.] The circuit court asked Doody whether he had any questions, and he responded that he did not. The court then asked Abraham-Medved if she had any questions, and she asked whether she would be going back to Minnesota and if she was "done with the sentence here[.]" The court told her she would be going to the women's prison in Pierre, and they would decide where and when she would go from there. She also asked about when she was eligible for parole, and the court clarified the percentage of time she would be required to serve. Abraham-Medved then requested a furlough before going to prison so she could move out of her college dormitory. The State opposed her request in light of the court's sentence and her motivation to abscond. The court denied the furlough request.

[¶11.] Abraham-Medved appeals, asserting that the circuit court abused its discretion in denying Doody's motion to withdraw.

Standard of Review

[¶12.] This Court reviews a denial of defense counsel's motion to withdraw for an abuse of discretion. State v Loftus, 1997 S.D. 94, ¶ 13, 566 N.W.2d 825, 827 (citing State v. Iron Necklace, 430 N.W.2d 66, 79, (S.D. 1988)); State v. Martinez, 2016 S.D. 49, ¶ 15, 882 N.W.2d 731, 735. In regard to this standard of review, the State requests that we "definitively clarify" what definition of "abuse of discretion" applies. In the State's view, the Court has used different definitions since stating in State v. Delehoy that "[t]he correct statement of review is as follows: An abuse of discretion 'is a fundamental error of judgment, a choice outside the range of permissible choices, a decision, which, on full consideration, is arbitrary or unreasonable.'" 2019 S.D. 30, ¶ 22, 929 N.W.2d 103, 109 (quoting Thurman v. CUNA Mut'l Ins. Soc'y, 2013 S.D. 63, ¶ 11, 836 N.W.2d 611, 616). The State notes that in most cases decided after Delehoy, an abuse of discretion was defined consistent with Delehoy (i.e., fundamental error of judgment), but in some, the Court stated that "[a]n abuse of discretion occurs when the circuit court exercises its discretion to an end or purpose not justified by, and clearly against reason and evidence[,]" see, e.g., State v. Reeves, 2021 S.D. 64, ¶ 11, 967 N.W.2d 144, 147 (citation omitted).

[¶13.] While the Court in Delehoy did clarify the proper inquiry when an abuse of discretion standard of review is implicated, we did so because the parties in Delehoy and in past cases were continuing to use language previously abandoned by this Court that related an inaccurate and inapplicable definition of an abuse of discretion, namely "whether a judicial mind, considering the law and facts, could have reached a similar decision." See 2019 S.D. 30, ¶¶ 21-22, 929 N.W.2d at 108- 09 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (directing the parties to no longer use this definition for an abuse of discretion). There is nothing inaccurate or unclear about the two statements highlighted by the State and used in this Court's decisions post-Delehoy. It is an abuse of discretion for a circuit court to make "a fundamental error of judgment, a choice outside the range of permissible choices, a decision, which, on full consideration, is arbitrary or unreasonable[,]"...