holding that plea was rendered involuntary as a result of ineffective assistance of counsel due to counsel’s misadvice to defendant that he would be transferred to federal custody upon pleading guilty to state offense
How later courts described this case
- holding that plea was rendered involuntary as a result of ineffective assistance of counsel due to counsel’s misadvice to defendant that he would be transferred to federal custody upon pleading guilty to state offense
- explaining that, in assessing competence, counsel is “accountable for knowledge, or the ability to attain knowledge, of relevant legal matters that are neither novel nor unsettled”
- holding defendant showed prejudice but noting that “not every reliance on erroneous advice is sufficient to justify rendering the plea vulnerable to collateral attack”
- holding that the defendant‘s trial 5 counsel‘s testimony was sufficient to establish that but for counsel‘s advice, the defendant would not have pled guilty
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
KELLER, J.,
concurring in which MANSFIELD, WOMACK, and KEASLER, JJ. joined.
My understanding of the Court’s opinion is that relief is granted on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel. While an involuntary plea is the prejudice that applicant has suffered that satisfies the prejudice prong of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), an “involuntary plea” does not constitute a freestanding basis for relief absent state action. The Court also distinguishes the present case from cases involving erroneous advice about parole eligibility. I understand the Court’s opinion to say that the present case is distinguishable from such cases because the absence of concurrent sentences means that the time served by applicant in prison will necessarily be longer than had the sentences been concurrent as applicant was led to believe. Erroneous advice about parole eligibility, on the other hand, does not necessarily affect the length of confinement because release on parole is discretionary — the parole board may choose never to release a given inmate on parole. With these understandings, I join the majority opinion.