How to Withdraw a Guilty Plea
I’ve pled guilty to a crime that I’m not guilty of, is there anything I can do about that? Hi, I’m Oklahoma City Attorney Aaron Easton and that’s a question we have for us today and it’s sadly a very common question. For those of you who have been involved as a defendant in the criminal justice process or have a loved one that’s gone through that process, you know a lot of times there can be a lot of pressure from the state to plea to a crime in order to avoid a much harsher penalty, a much longer sentence.
And often times that pressure leads to people pleading guilty to crimes that they simply didn’t commit. And so as time goes, whether it’s you know almost immediately after or sadly even years down the road, I have defendants and their family call me because again they pled to something they didn’t do and they want to know what can they do about it. And so what we’re talking about today is the withdrawal of a plea and whether or not you can do that.
The Right to Withdraw a Plea
The answer is you can. It’s a pretty high burden to meet but the court allows you to withdraw a plea if that plea was not knowing and voluntary. And that might sound more simple than it should because you know a lot of us aren’t sophisticated in the legal process and it’s easy for us to say well I didn’t know exactly what I was agreeing to and while that’s almost certainly true, the burden for the court is a little bit higher.
But let’s start with the right to do so and the United States Supreme Court has actually said you have the constitutional right to not plea guilty to crimes you’re not guilty for. Kind of makes sense, right? So I’m going to read here from a famous U.S. Supreme Court case named Boykin v. Alabama and the court held, quote, a plea of guilty is more than a confession. It is itself a conviction. As such, it implicates the defendant’s 5th and 14th Amendment rights against self-incrimination, the right to trial by jury, and the right to confront one’s accusers.
So in order to waive those fundamental constitutional rights, the plea that a defendant enters has to be knowing and voluntary. Again, the important part is whether that was knowing and voluntary. So to accept the defendant’s plea, the trial court must first determine if the defendant is competent by appropriate interrogation of the defendant and his defense counsel regarding the defendant’s past and present mental state. And it goes on from there.
But if you’ve pled guilty to a crime, you know you stood in front of a court and the judge has read off several questions that were on the summary of facts plea of guilty form that you had to have signed if you pled guilty to a crime in the state of Oklahoma. And so the purpose of those, the purpose of you reading through that with your defense attorney going over it, with you circling the answers, and with the judge asking you that in open court is to meet those constitutional criteria to show that a defendant, that their plea was, in fact, knowing and voluntary.
And so you’re fighting against a presumption that it was knowing and voluntary, and you’ve got to show why it wasn’t. To do that, you’re probably going to need to speak to an attorney about the specifics, the circumstances of your case. Again, it’s a heavy burden to meet, but it can be done.
Contact Us for a Initial Consultation
If you’d like to speak to somebody with my firm for a initial consultation, you can reach us at 405-888-5400 or online at postconviction.lawyer.