No Extension of Padilla to Risk of Loss of eligibility to Posses Firearm Following Conviction

Sames v. State, Minn.Ct.App., 10/17/2011.  Mr. Sames pled guilty to misdemeanor domestic assault.  After sentencing, he moved to withdraw his plea, saying that his attorney was ineffective by not advising him that his plea would make him ineligible to possess a firearm.  He made this argument, of course, on the back of Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S.Ct., 1473 (2010).

After sentencing, withdrawal of a guilty plea is only permitted to correct a “manifest injustice,” which exists if the plea is not accurate, voluntary and intelligent.  State v. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d 90 (Minn. 2010).  Historically, the courts have said that a plea is still voluntary even when a defendant is unaware of what it characterizes as “collateral consequences.”  The risk of becoming ineligible to possess a firearm is such a “collateral consequence.”  State v. Rodriguez, 590 N.W. 2d 823 (Minn.Ct.App. 1999). 

Now the court of appeals was not unimpressed with the logic of extending Padilla to these facts.  Padilla acknowledged, after all, that the Supreme Court has never relied on this distinction to define the scope of a constitutionally protected right.  Loss of eligibility to posses a firearm is nearly as “intimately related to the criminal process” as is deportation, and is “nearly an automatic result” of a criminal conviction.  Even so, this is a timid panel and abjures going first.  The court can’t find a single case from any other jurisdiction that has agreed with the logical extension of Padilla that Sames urges. 

The Minnesota Supreme Court declined further review.