Second Guilty Plea After Rejection of First Plea Is No Bar to Double Jeopardy Challenge

State v. Jeffries, Minn.S.Ct., 10/19/2011.  This came up from the court of appeals.  Go here. 

The state charged Mr. Jeffries with felony domestic assault, then gave notice of its intent to seek to impose upon him an upward sentencing departure for being a career offender.  Mr. Jeffries then decided to plead guilty under a deal that called for an upward, but stayed sentencing departure.  The trial court not only accepted the plea, it pronounced Mr. Jefferies “convicted of that.”

And then changed his mind.  The supreme court said, not so fast.  You said you accepted the guilty plea and you said that Mr. Jeffries was guilty.  What’s left?  The majority rejects the claim of the chief justice that a trial judge has the discretion to withdraw acceptance of a guilty plea upon ascertaining additional information about a defendant’s criminal history; nothing in the rules creates such discretion.

This plea was not only accepted, it was “recorded” such that jeopardy attached.  See State v. Martinez-Mendoza.  This means that the second guilty plea must be vacated because the second conviction violates double jeopardy.  That second plea also did not act as a waiver of the double jeopardy claim.