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DEFENDANT RAISED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VOLUNTARINESS OF HIS PLEA TO FIRST DEGREE MURDER SUFFICIENT TO WARRANT A HEARING ON HIS MOTION TO VACATE THE JUDGMENT OF CONVICTION (THIRD DEPT).

The Third Department, reversing County Court, determined defendant had raised questions about the voluntariness of his plea to first degree murder (for killing his parents) which required a hearing on his motion to vacate his plea. Defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. In his motion to vacate his plea, defendant alleged his attorneys told him that the death penalty for first degree murder was going to be overturned and thereafter his sentence could be reduced. Defendant also alleged his guilty plea was induced in part by his cousin’s offer to pay him $10,000 if he pled guilty and renounced any claim to his parents’ estate:

According to defendant, after he had received the offer of payment, he remained reticent to accept the plea offer; however, by his telling, consideration of that payment together with his averment as to trial counsel’s misadvice of a potential reduced sentence ultimately persuaded him to accept the offer to plead guilty and be sentenced to life without parole. In support of that account, motion counsel and defendant’s investigator recounted trial counsel’s representation that defendant’s initial objection to accepting the plea offer diminished once the $10,000 payment had been offered. In support of defendant’s motion, he presented further evidence that $10,000 was paid to him after he entered his plea by way of two separate $5,000 checks, one of which was provided by his cousin. The evidence of that payment and the corresponding account that it influenced defendant’s deliberations as to whether to accept the plea, considered alongside the misadvice that he was purportedly provided, create an issue of fact as to whether he was subjected to something more “than the type of situational coercion faced by many defendants who are offered a plea deal” … .

All told, we find that defendant’s submissions in support of his motion are sufficient to raise an issue of fact warranting a hearing with respect to deficiencies in his representation … and the effect on the voluntariness of his plea … . …  With respect to both his claims, defendant bears the burden of establishing his entitlement to relief by a preponderance of the evidence (see CPL 440.30 [6]). As to his contention of deficient representation, defendant will bear the burden of proving that he was misadvised about the potential to have his sentence reduced in the future if he took the People’s plea offer and, but for that misadvice, there is a reasonable probability that he would have chosen to proceed to trial … . … [A]t this juncture the question “is whether defendant has made sufficient allegations to warrant an evidentiary hearing, not whether defendant has satisfied his burden of proof” … . People v Mower, 2025 NY Slip Op 05851, Third Dept 10-23-25

Practice Point: Consult this decision for insight into the allegations and proof which will be sufficient to require a hearing on whether defendant’s guilty plea was voluntarily entered in the context of a post-appeal motion to vacate the judgment of conviction.

 

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