Failure to Impose Conditional Release Term is Not Basis on Which to Withdraw Plea

Oldenburg v. State, Minn.Ct.App., 4/7/2009.  This post conviction petition challenged the after market instillation of a conditional release term on grounds that it was not part of the plea agreement.  Back a few years ago, there were a slew of cases on this issue, such as State v. Jumping Eagle, 620 N.W.2d 42 (Minn. 2000); Ms. Oldenburg's plea arose in the midst of that litigation.  The basic rule to come out of all that litigation is this:

If the addition of a mandatory conditional-release term after sentencing and without prior notice would exceed the maximum length of an executed sentence set forth in a plea agreement, the addition of the term violates the plea agreement.

Ms. Oldenburg pled guilty to first degree DWI.  The written plea petition specifically alerted Ms. Oldenburg to the conditional release term, the Guidelines Worksheet alerted her to it, but the pre-sentence investigation report did not.  No one mentioned it during the plea colloquy.  At sentencing, the court stayed Ms. Oldenburg's thirty-six month sentence, with no mention of the conditional release term.

Four years later, Ms. Oldenburg appeared on several probation violations.  She admitted the violations, the court executed the previously stayed sentence; the court did not impose the conditional release term.  The Department of Corrections, however, did impose it.  This prompted Ms. Oldenburg to petition the trial court either to withdraw her plea or to have her sentence modified.  She got neither.

The inclusion of a conditional release term is sort of a sleeper provision in the DWI statute.  It's found in Minn.Stat. 169A.276, Subd. 1(d).  If nothing else, this case is a reminder of that requirement. 

Ms. Oldenburg loses because the appellate court did not think that the plea agreement contained a "maximum length of an executed sentence."  The appellate court viewed the plea agreement as totally wide open.  Here's how the state described the agreement:

Your Honor, I think we have this matter resolved. Ms. Oldenburg will be pleading guilty to the Count 1 Charge of Felony DWI, the state is agreeing to dismiss the remaining counts at time of sentencing, with sentence open to the court and argument by counsel.

The appellate court concluded that this agreement said nothing about the duration of Ms. Oldenburg's sentence.  It apparently declines to infer such a duration from the district court's thirty-six month sentence, which would be the Guidelines sentence for a DWI conviction of one with zero criminal history score.  That being the case, it's easy for the appellate court to conclude that the later addition of the conditional release term did not violate that agreement.  Presumably, any mention in the agreement of the Guidelines would have sufficed to tether the agreement to a specific duration.