State v. Padilla-Loza

1

State of Kansas, Appellee, v. Horacio Padilla-Loza, Appellant.

No. 123, 266

Court of Appeals of Kansas

January 21, 2022

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

Appeal from Clark District Court; Sidney R. Thomas, judge.

Terry J. Malone, of Williams-Malone, P.A., of Dodge City, for appellant.

Joseph H. Milavec, county attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.

Before Hill, P.J., Atcheson and Warner, JJ.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PER CURIAM

As part of an agreement resolving felony and misdemeanor drug charges against Defendant Horacio Padilla-Loza, the State joined in recommending a personal recognizance bond for him in exchange for his no-contest plea to the felony. The Clark County District Court accepted the plea, found Padilla guilty, and granted the bond request, allowing Padilla to get out of jail. After changing lawyers, Padilla filed a motion to withdraw his plea on the grounds the State's agreement to the bond modification amounted to an impermissibly coercive inducement, rendering the plea improper. The district court denied the motion. Padilla has appealed that ruling.

In the run of cases, the State's willingness to support a requested bond modification as part of a plea agreement is not unduly coercive nor does it otherwise impermissibly take advantage of a defendant. This is such a case. Moreover Padilla's shifting positions in requesting and receiving the modified bond and later trying to leverage that change to withdraw his plea entails a litigation tactic precluded by the judicial estoppel doctrine. We affirm the district court's denial of Padilla's motion to withdraw his plea, thereby preserving the conviction and resulting sentence.

Factual and Procedural History

The relevant facts are limited and undisputed. In November 2019 a law enforcement officer stopped Padilla for failing to properly signal when merging as he was driving through Minneola. The officer and Padilla played out something close to a textbook drug interdiction traffic stop, the details of which are irrelevant to the appeal. Padilla, a Mexican national, had a Pennsylvania driver's license and was driving a vehicle with Pennsylvania plates. He told the officer he was in the midst of a marital breakup and was moving from Pennsylvania to California. A search of the vehicle uncovered about 2 ounces of methamphetamine, some of which appeared to be packaged for distribution, and a glass pipe of the sort commonly used with illegal drugs.

The State charged Padilla with possession of methamphetamine, a felony, and with possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. His bond was set at $10, 000-an amount he was unable to post. Padilla's appointed lawyer filed a motion for a bond modification that a magistrate judge denied on the grounds Padilla had no ties to the community and presented a substantial flight risk.

The lawyer then negotiated an agreement with the State calling for Padilla to plead no contest to the possession of methamphetamine charge with a joint recommendation for a guidelines sentence that everyone anticipated would presumptively call for probation.

In addition, the State agreed to drop the misdemeanor charge and to join in a request that Padilla be given an own recognizance or OR bond allowing him to immediately get out of jail in advance of sentencing.

At the plea hearing, Padilla told the district court he understood and approved of the deal his lawyer had worked out with the State. He was informed of the possible penalties he faced and the rights he was giving up by entering a plea. Upon the State's evidentiary proffer, the district court accepted Padilla's no-contest plea and adjudged him guilty of possession of methamphetamine. The district court then modified the bond in conformity with the parties' recommendation. Padilla was released from jail on an OR bond.

Before sentencing, Padilla hired a replacement for his court-appointed lawyer. The new lawyer filed a motion to withdraw Padilla's no-contest plea under K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 22-3210(d)(1). Testifying in support of the motion Padilla told the district court he was generally satisfied with his first lawyer and understood the proceedings in his case. But he indicated he was unaware that he could seek a bond modification without entering a plea, although his first lawyer had attempted to do so. Padilla testified that he took the plea deal principally to get out of jail because he could not post bond. At the July 2020 hearing, Padilla's new lawyer suggested it was improper for the State to include a recommendation for a bond reduction as part of a plea deal and Padilla, therefore, should be allowed to withdraw his plea. The district court denied the motion and later proceeded to sentence Padilla in accordance with the plea agreement. The district court placed Padilla on probation for 12 months with an underlying sentence of 11 months in prison and 12 months on postrelease supervision. Padilla has appealed.

Legal Analysis

For his only issue on appeal, Padilla contends the district court erred in denying the motion to withdraw his plea to the methamphetamine charge. Padilla essentially reprises his argument to the district court: An offer by the State to join in a bond modification that would allow a defendant to get out of jail impermissibly taints a plea agreement and renders it unduly coercive.

No Abuse of Judicial Discretion in Denying Padilla's Motion

A defendant has a statutory right to withdraw a plea before sentencing for "good cause" and in the district court's "discretion." K.S.A. 2020 Supp 22-3210(d)(1). District courts are to look at three primary factors to determine if a defendant has shown good cause to withdraw a plea: (1) whether the defendant was represented by competent counsel; (2) whether the defendant was misled coerced, mistreated, or unfairly taken advantage of; and (3) whether the plea was fairly and understandingly made. State v. Garcia, 295 Kan. 53, 62-63, 283 P.3d 165 (2012) (noting that these considerations- commonly known as the Edgar factors-establish a sound benchmark); State v. Williams, 290 Kan. 1050, 1053, 236 P.3d 512 (2010); State v. Edgar, 281 Kan. 30, 36, 127 P.3d 986 (2006). All three factors need not favor the defendant to permit relief from a plea, and the district court should consider other relevant circumstances based on the facts of the particular case. See Garcia, 295 Kan. at 63 (district court not confined to Edgar factors); Williams, 290 Kan. at 1054 (all of the Edgar factors need not favor defendant; court may consider other circumstances); State v. Aguilar, 290 Kan. 506, 512-13, 231 P.3d 563 (2010).

Because the governing statute expressly affords the district court discretion in ruling on a defendant's motion to withdraw a plea before sentencing, an appellate court reviews the determination for abuse of discretion. State v White, 289 Kan. 279, 284, 211 P.3d 805 (2009). A district court exceeds that discretion if it rules in a way no reasonable judicial officer would under the circumstances, if it ignores controlling facts or relies on unproven factual representations, or if it acts outside the legal framework appropriate to the issue. See State v. Darrah, 309 Kan. 1222, 1227, 442 P.3d 1049 (2019); State v. Ward, 292 Kan. 541, Syl. ¶ 3, 256 P.3d 801 (2011).

On appeal, Padilla does not directly incorporate the Edgar factors into his argument that a recommendation for a bond modification necessarily taints a plea agreement. But the pitch more or less implicates the second factor bearing on whether the defendant has been high-pressured, bamboozled, or otherwise treated unfairly in the plea process. Here, the evidence is otherwise, as Padilla outlined in his testimony. He understood the plea arrangement and entered into it because it conferred benefits on him, including the likelihood he could get out of jail. The very nature of plea bargaining entails a mutual exchange of perceived benefits. The State avoids the uncertainty of a trial and conserves prosecutorial time and resources for other endeavors because a defendant agrees to plead. A defendant eliminates the same uncertainty and typically receives a reduction in charges, a favorable sentencing recommendation, or both. See State v. Pollman, 56 Kan.App.2d 1015, 1042-43, 441 P.3d 511 (Atcheson, J., dissenting), rev. granted 310 Kan. 1069 (2019), dismissed as moot March 23, 2021.

By their nature, plea agreements, then, tend to open avenues for lessening the loss of liberty defendants face if convicted as initially charged. The State's offer to join in a recommendation for a bond modification in exchange for a defendant's plea-permitting presentencing release from custody-is, thus, of a kind with the other inducement commonly included in plea bargains. As a policy matter, such bond modifications also have a certain sensibility for many defendants who have committed nonviolent crimes and likely will receive sentences presumptively calling for probation under the sentencing guidelines.

We therefore, do not see some inherent unfairness or undue coercion in the State's offer to recommend an OR bond for Padilla upon his no-contest plea to the felony drug charge. This court has found those recommendations do not furnish "good cause" for defendants to later withdraw their pleas. See State v. Croft, No. 118, 856, 2018 WL 5730134, at *2 (Kan. App. 2018) (unpublished opinion); State v. Walker, No. 117, 909, 2018 WL 3077089, at *3 (Kan. App. 2018) (unpublished opinion); State v. Thomas, No. 110, 681, 2015 WL 326458, at *6 (Kan. App. 2015) (unpublished opinion). In those cases, the defendants argued that significant family circumstances, such as the poor health or recent death of a close relative, factored heavily into their decisions to plead...