State v. Lewis

298 Ga. 126

779 S.E.2d 643

The STATE

v.LEWIS.

No. S15G0666.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Nov. 16, 2015.

Anna Green Cross, Deputy Chief Asst. Dist. Atty., Robert D. James, Jr., Dist. Atty., Dekalb County District Attorney's Office, for appellant.

Michael Lawrence Brown, Bernard Taylor, Kacy Brake, Alston & Bird LLP, Atlanta, for appellee.

Sarah L. Gerwig–Moore, Mercer Law School, Macon, Joseph Scott Key, Miller & Key, PA, McDonough, for neutral amicus.

THOMPSON, Chief Justice.

We granted a petition for writ of certiorari in this case to decide, inter alia, whether the Court of Appeals erred in determining that a trial court, having agreed to accept the terms of a negotiated plea agreement between the State and a criminal defendant, retained the authority to decide whether the terms of the plea agreement had been satisfied and reject the plea agreement if they had not. See Lewis v. State, 330 Ga.App. 412, 767 S.E.2d 771 (2014). The State contends that having agreed to accept the terms of a plea bargain the State negotiated with the defendant, Crawford Lewis, the trial court subsequently lacked the authority to determine whether the terms of the parties' plea agreement had been fulfilled absent a dispute between the parties. Because we conclude that the Court of Appeals' opinion properly balanced the rights of the parties with respect to the enforcement of the terms of a plea agreement with the power of the trial court to reject such agreements, we affirm.

The facts giving rise to this appeal are as follows: After a DeKalb County grand jury indicted Lewis, Patricia Reid and Anthony Pope, on charges of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act (OCGA § 16–14–4 et seq. ) and felony theft by taking (OCGA § 16–8–2 ), the State offered Lewis a plea deal. In exchange for pleading guilty to one misdemeanor count of hindering and obstructing a law enforcement officer (OCGA § 16–10–24(a) ), the State agreed to dismiss the RICO and related theft charges against Lewis, conditioned upon his testifying truthfully at the trial of his co-defendants. At the time his plea was entered, Lewis understood that if he satisfied his obligations with respect to providing truthful testimony against his co-defendants, the State would recommend to the trial court that he be sentenced to 12 months probation, a $500 fine, and 240 hours of community service. The trial court accepted Lewis' plea, but withheld sentencing pending Lewis' compliance with the plea terms and a final resolution in the case against his co-defendants.

As required by the terms of the plea agreement, Lewis waived his Fifth Amendment rights and testified at the trial of Reid and Pope, who were convicted. Thereafter, at the sentencing hearing, the State proffered that Lewis had complied with the conditions of the plea bargain by testifying truthfully, and asked the trial court to impose the agreed upon sentence. Without specifically addressing the question of whether Lewis' trial testimony had been truthful, the trial court rejected the State's sentencing recommendation and announced its intention to sentence Lewis to 12 months to serve. The trial court then gave Lewis an opportunity to withdraw his plea and proceed to trial, but he chose not to do so. The trial court sentenced Lewis to 12 months imprisonment, denied his request for supersedeas bond, and remanded him into state custody. The next day, Lewis' attorneys filed an emergency motion seeking reconsideration of his sentence,¹ and the trial court scheduled a hearing for the following week.

At the hearing on the emergency motion, the trial court pointed to language in the guilty plea transcript showing that Lewis clearly had been advised that the court was not bound by any of the State's promises or recommendations and would only sentence him according to the State's recommendation if he testified truthfully. Declaring that its decision regarding Lewis' sentence was based on "the credibility, the believability, the probability or the improbability of the testimony [it] heard," the trial court denied Lewis' motion for reconsideration. Although the trial court again offered to allow Lewis to withdraw his guilty plea, it informed him that if he did, his prior testimony could be used against him in a future prosecution. Rather than withdraw the plea, Lewis requested a certificate of immediate review which the trial court granted. His subsequent application for interlocutory appeal was granted by the Court of Appeals.

On appeal, Lewis argued that the trial court, having accepted the negotiated plea agreement, erred in refusing to sentence him in accordance with its terms. Lewis asserted, and the State agreed, that he had testified truthfully as required by the plea conditions. Because neither party to the agreement disputed that this condition had been met, Lewis claimed the trial court had no authority to refuse to impose the agreed upon probationary sentence.

After reviewing the transcript of the plea hearing, the Court of Appeals found that the trial court, in accepting Lewis' guilty plea, had agreed to sentence him in conformity with the terms of the negotiated plea agreement, provided that he testify truthfully at the trial of his co-defendants. See Lewis, supra, 330 Ga.App. at 414, 767 S.E.2d 771. Noting that Lewis had detrimentally relied on the trial court's acceptance of the plea bargain by waiving his constitutional rights in order to testify on behalf of the State, the Court of Appeals concluded that Lewis was entitled to specific performance of the plea terms previously accepted by the trial court, if he had, in fact, testified truthfully. Id. The Court of Appeals also observed, however, that, although both the State and Lewis claimed Lewis' testimony had been truthful, the trial court apparently disagreed. Recognizing the need to ensure the fairness and integrity of Lewis' plea bargain, the Court of Appeals vacated Lewis' sentence and remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing for the purpose of determining whether Lewis had fulfilled his obligation of testifying truthfully. Id. at 415, 767 S.E.2d 771.

The State filed a petition for certiorari, which we granted, asserting that the Court of Appeals erred by finding that the trial court could refuse to adhere to the terms of the parties' negotiated plea agreement which the court had previously accepted, despite both parties agreeing the plea terms had been satisfied.

1. We note, as an initial matter, that both the State and Lewis have an interest in seeing that their bargained for plea agreement is accepted and enforced by the trial court in this case. To this end, the parties phrase their arguments challenging the trial court's actions in terms of general contract principles to be applied to a simple contract between the State and Lewis and in which, they argue, the trial court has no interest. These arguments, however, give little or no consideration to the authority and constitutional responsibility of a trial court in the sentencing of a criminal defendant who has entered into a plea agreement with the State and specifically ignore the trial court's acceptance of the plea agreement in this case. With that in mind, as discussed further below, we reject the broad proposition posited by the parties that once a trial court accepts a plea agreement in a criminal prosecution, it has no authority to determine whether the parties to that agreement, either the State or the defendant, have complied with its terms and no authority to reject the plea agreement and agreed upon sentence based on one party's lack of performance if the other party does not complain of the lack of performance.

2. In order to address the parties' specific arguments and the issues identified in our grant of certiorari, we first must establish the terms of the plea agreement between Lewis and the State and the trial court's acceptance thereof. In that regard, the parties do not dispute that the State, Lewis, and the trial court all understood that the State's agreement to reduce the charges against Lewis and to recommend to the trial court a sentence of 12 months probation was contingent upon Lewis testifying truthfully in the State's prosecution of his co-defendants. It is also beyond reasonable dispute that the trial court's acceptance of the negotiated plea agreement and its commitment to sentence Lewis to the agreed upon probationary sentence was expressly conditioned on Lewis' fulfillment of his obligation to testify truthfully. The plea hearing transcript shows that when entering his guilty plea, Lewis confirmed that he understood that he faced a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison, that the trial court was withholding sentence until after he testified in the trial of his co-defendants, and that while the State had recommended a sentence of 12 months probation, the trial court would sentence Lewis "accordingly," subject to his truthful testimony at the trial.² We agree with the Court of Appeals, therefore, that both the plea agreement and the trial court's commitment to sentence Lewis according to the terms of that agreement were conditioned upon Lewis' performance of his promise to provide truthful testimony at the trial of his co-defendants.³ See Lewis, supra, 330 Ga.App. at 414, 767 S.E.2d 771.

3. Although both the plea agreement between Lewis and the State and the trial court's sentencing commitment were conditioned upon the giving of the same truthful testimony, the State, at Lewis' sentencing hearing, took the position that Lewis had in all aspects complied with his obligations under the plea agreement. The trial court, in apparent disagreement, considered Lewis' testimony at trial to be not credible and unbelievable and imposed a sentence which differed from the sentence it had agreed to impose had Lewis complied with the plea terms. Thus, the issue before the Court of Appeals and now before this Court is "whether Lewis, after relying on...