State of Minnesota v. Ryan Emmett Moore, and Ryan Emmett Moore v. State of Minnesota ( 2017 )

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A15-0789
A16-0287
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs.
Ryan Emmett Moore,
Appellant,
and
Ryan Emmett Moore, petitioner,
Appellant,
vs.
State of Minnesota,
Respondent.
Filed January 17, 2017
Reversed and remanded
Klaphake, Judge *
Pope County District Court
File No. 61-CR-11-527
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and
Neil T. Nelson, Pope County Attorney, Obenland Roth & Nelson, Glenwood, Minnesota
(for respondent)
*
Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Sean M. McGuire, Assistant State
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Hooten, Judge; and Klaphake,
Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
KLAPHAKE, Judge
Appellant Ryan Emmett Moore challenges the order denying his petition for
postconviction relief, arguing that the district court erred in refusing to allow him to
withdraw his Alford plea. Because the plea colloquy was insufficient on the strength of the
state’s case, we reverse and remand.
DECISION
After sentencing, “the court must allow a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea upon
a timely motion and proof to the satisfaction of the court that withdrawal is necessary to
correct a manifest injustice.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1. “A manifest injustice exists
if a guilty plea is not valid.” State v. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d 90, 94 (Minn. 2010). “To be
constitutionally valid, a guilty plea must be accurate, voluntary, and intelligent.” Id.
Whether a plea is valid is a question of law subject to de novo review. Id.
Moore argues that the factual basis for his plea was insufficient. “A proper factual
basis must be established for a guilty plea to be accurate.” State v. Ecker, 524 N.W.2d at
712, 716 (Minn. 1994). “The main purpose of the accuracy requirement is to protect a
defendant from pleading guilty to a more serious offense than he could be convicted of
were he to insist on his right to trial.” State v. Trott, 338 N.W.2d 248, 251 (Minn. 1983).
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A defendant “may plead guilty to an offense, even though the defendant maintains
his or her innocence, if the defendant reasonably believes, and the record establishes, the
state has sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction.” Ecker, 524 N.W.2d at 716 (citing
North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 37, 91 S. Ct. 160, 167 (1970)). “[C]areful scrutiny
of the factual basis for the plea is necessary within the context of an Alford plea because of
the inherent conflict in pleading guilty while maintaining innocence.” State v. Theis, 742
N.W.2d 643, 648-49 (Minn. 2007). An Alford plea is constitutionally acceptable when
“the State demonstrate[s] a strong factual basis for the plea and the defendant clearly
expresse[s] his desire to enter the plea based on his belief that the State’s evidence would
be sufficient to convict him.” Id. at 647 (quotation omitted).
The Theis court explained:
Within the context of an Alford plea, where the defendant is
maintaining his innocence, the defendant’s acknowledgement
that the State’s evidence is sufficient to convict is critical to the
court’s ability to serve the protective purpose of the accuracy
requirement. The best practice for ensuring this protection is
to have the defendant specifically acknowledge on the record
at the plea hearing that the evidence the State would likely offer
against him is sufficient for a jury, applying a reasonable doubt
standard, to find the defendant guilty of the offense to which
he is pleading guilty . . . .
The strong factual basis and the defendant’s agreement
that the evidence is sufficient to support his conviction provide
the court with a basis to independently conclude that there is a
strong probability that the defendant would be found guilty of
the offense to which he is pleading guilty.
Id. (quotation and citation omitted).
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Moore entered an Alford plea to first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Moore and
the complainant had known each other for over 20 years, and she had acknowledged to the
police that they had had a consensual sexual relationship before the alleged sexual assault
occurred. For the factual basis, Moore acknowledged that the complainant had said that,
after smoking methamphetamine, Moore forcibly penetrated her orally and anally with his
penis and that she consented because she did not feel safe in resisting. The district court
then asked:
Q. . . . [I]f there were a trial sounds like the prosecution would
bring in [the victim] who would say stuff like that. And there
would probably be . . . some police officers who said that she
acted upset and stated she was in pain. And then you would
presumably put on your own witnesses, and you could testify
and say it didn’t happen like that. And I didn’t commit a crime
against her. But if the jury chose to believe her and didn’t find
you believable, do you believe that if they just believed what
she said they would find you guilty?
A. Yeah, yes.
Q. . . . And you are pleading guilty under these circumstances
in order to take advantage of this plea agreement?
A. Yes.
Neither the parties nor the district court addressed the requirement of proof beyond
a reasonable doubt at Moore’s plea hearing, and the parties and the court acknowledged
weaknesses in the state’s case. At a hearing on a discovery motion, defense counsel raised
the possibility that the complainant fabricated the sexual assault in an effort to obtain pain
medication. Defense counsel asserted that the victim went to the hospital eight hours after
the alleged sexual assault, claiming to be in extreme pain, but that the attending physician
found no signs of injury or trauma and refused to prescribe pain medication because the
Minnesota Board of Pharmacy’s prescription monitoring program showed that the
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complainant received “fairly large amounts of narcotics on a regular basis.” The district
court ruled that, at trial, Moore could call the attending physician to testify and produce the
medical records of the complainant’s treatment.
At a hearing addressing the possibility of resolving the case with a stay of
adjudication, the district court noted that the state had been unable to get in touch with the
victim, which could impede the state’s ability to try the case. The prosecutor agreed with
the concern expressed by the district court. The state’s case depended on the credibility of
the complainant’s allegations against Moore.
At the sentencing hearing, defense counsel stated that the plea agreement “was
really an evidentiary matter and the evidence was very questionable about whether or not
this offense could be proven.” The district court told Moore that the first-degree criminal
sexual conduct charge was a “very serious charge” given his history of criminal-sexual-
conduct offenses, and stated that he had gotten a very favorable deal “[j]ust leaving aside
the factual difficulties of the case.”
At a probation violation hearing, the district court again noted that the plea
agreement was reached because of “possible problems of proof.”
The record shows that the plea agreement was entered into by the parties and
accepted by the district court based on a balancing of the evidence that could cast doubt on
the victim’s credibility against the long sentence that Moore would serve if convicted. This
is not a sufficient factual basis for an Alford plea. Because the plea colloquy did not address
the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and there was not a strong factual basis
for the plea, the plea did not satisfy the protective purpose of the accuracy requirement in
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the context of an Alford plea. We therefore reverse and remand to permit Moore to
withdraw his plea. See Theis, 742 N.W.2d at 649-50 (discussing strength of evidence in
other cases involving Alford pleas and reversing Alford plea that did not meet accuracy
requirement).
Because we are reversing Moore’s plea, the appeal challenging the probation
revocation order is moot.
Reversed and remanded.
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