stating that “due process mandates strict adherence to any plea agreement”
How later courts described this case
- stating that “due process mandates strict adherence to any plea agreement”
- focusing on whether the defendant had “reasonably” interpreted his plea agreement as barring the State from undertaking certain future actions
- “By pleading guilty, a defendant waives many constitutional rights, not the least of which is his right to a jury trial. No other right of the individual has been so zealously guarded over the years and so deeply embedded in our system of jurisprudence .... As such, due process mandates strict adherence to any plea agreement.” (quotation marks and citations omitted)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Judge Walker
dissents.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion which grants the defendant a new trial in case numbers 97 CRS 6390 and 97 CRS 6421, dealing with felony murder and felony assault.
The majority concludes that the State violated the plea agreement in 97 CRS 6391, which was introduced at defendant’s trial, by allowing the State to use felonious impaired driving to prove felony assault, resulting in prejudicial error. I disagree.
Independent of the plea agreement and the charge of felonious impaired driving, the record contains overwhelming evidence, properly admitted, which showed that on this occasion the defendant was operating his vehicle in a reckless manner and drove his vehicle across the center line, striking the victim’s vehicle. While operating his vehicle, the defendant was under the influence of alcohol, heroin and cocaine. Thus, the evidence would enable the jury to find the defendant guilty of operating his vehicle in a culpably negligent manner, thereby committing felony assault used to prove felony murder. I conclude there was no prejudicial error in the defendant’s trial.