Opinion
Docket No. 33960.
Filed January 7, 2009.
Appeal from the District Court of the Fifth Judicial District, State of Idaho, Jerome County. Hon. John K. Butler, District Judge.
Order denying motion to withdraw guilty plea, affirmed.
Nevin, Benjamin, McKay Bartlett; Dennis A. Benjamin, Boise, for appellant.
Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General; Kenneth K. Jorgensen, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent.
Micah Nathaniel Wegner appeals from the district court's order denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea to correct manifest injustice. We affirm.
I. FACTS AND PROCEDURE
In March 2001, Wegner, who was born on August 21, 1983, was charged by juvenile petition with two counts of lewd conduct with a minor under sixteen, Idaho Code § 18-1508. Count I alleged lewd conduct with his sister committed between February 18, 1995 and April 15, 1998, while count II alleged lewd conduct with his stepbrother committed between July 19, 1996 and May 2, 1998.
After being waived into adult court, pursuant to a plea agreement, Wegner pled guilty to one count of lewd conduct with a minor child under sixteen, occurring between February 18, 1995 and May 3, 1998. The court entered a judgment of conviction and sentenced Wegner to a twenty-year term of imprisonment, with five years determinate, and retained jurisdiction for 180 days. Subsequently, the court relinquished jurisdiction, and Wegner filed a timely notice of appeal, contending that he was improperly waived into adult court and that his sentence is excessive. This Court affirmed the judgment of conviction and the sentence imposed. State v. Wegner, Docket No. 29412 (Ct.App. March 24, 2004) (unpublished). A remittitur was issued on April 15, 2004.
On December 1, 2006, Wegner filed, pro se, a "Motion to Withdraw Plea to Correct Manifest Injustice, I.C.R. 33(c)," accompanied by a motion for appointment of counsel. The district court denied Wegner's motion to withdraw his guilty plea and also denied his request for counsel. Wegner now appeals.
Idaho Criminal Rule 33(c) states that:
A motion to withdraw a plea of guilty may be made only before sentence is imposed or imposition of sentence is suspended; but to correct manifest injustice the court after sentence may set aside the judgment of conviction and permit the defendant to withdraw the defendant's plea.
II. ANALYSIS
A. Subject Matter Jurisdiction
Wegner challenges the district court's denial of his Rule 33 motion. Wegner asserts that the district court did not have jurisdiction to accept his guilty plea because it was not established that he was at least fourteen years old when the offending acts were committed. Idaho Code Section 18-216(1) provides that a person may not be tried for or convicted of a criminal offense if "at the time of the conduct charged to constitute the offense he was less than fourteen (14) years of age. . . ." The section continues, stating that "[n]o court shall have jurisdiction to try or convict a person of an offense if criminal proceedings against him are barred by subsection (1) of this section." I.C. § 18-216(2). Here, the charge to which Wegner pled guilty alleged thirteen separate acts of lewd conduct upon two victims, occurring between February 18, 1995 and May 3, 1998. He did not reach the age of fourteen until August 21, 1997. Thus, a majority of the period covered by the charge occurred while Wegner was under the age of fourteen.
In deciding that it did not have jurisdiction to grant Wegner's Rule 33 motion to withdraw his guilty plea — and thus not addressing the merits of his motion — the district court relied on State v. Jakoski, 139 Idaho 352, 79 P.3d 711 (2003). In Jakoski, the issue was whether the district court had jurisdiction to consider a defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea — on the grounds that it was not made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily and that his attorney had been ineffective — where the motion was filed six years after the judgment of conviction and more than three years after the district court had revoked the defendant's probation and ordered execution of his previously suspended sentence. The court held that absent a statute or rule extending its jurisdiction, the trial court's jurisdiction to amend or set aside a judgment expires once the judgment becomes final, either by expiration of the time for appeal or affirmance of the judgment on appeal. Id. at 355, 79 P.3d at 714. Because Jakoski did not appeal, the court held, his judgment of conviction became final in January 1995, when the time for appeal expired. Consequently, the district court had no jurisdiction to grant Jakoski's motion to withdraw his guilty plea. Id. Relying on Jakoski, the district court in this case concluded that it did not have jurisdiction to grant Wegner's motion to withdraw his guilty plea because he had not filed the Rule 33 motion until more than two years after the remittitur was issued on his direct appeal.
Jakoski, however, did not involve the issue of whether the district court had jurisdiction to accept the guilty plea in the first place, and given our recent decision in State v. Armstrong, ___ Idaho ___, ___ P.3d ___ (Ct.App. 2008) (review denied), we conclude that Jakoski does not control under the circumstances of this case. In Armstrong, we explained that the absence of subject matter jurisdiction is never waived and can be raised initially on appeal or even through a collateral attack on a judgment. Id. at ___, ___ P.3d ___. Thus, the district court did have authority to address whether it had had jurisdiction to accept the guilty plea in the first place.
We conclude, however, that the district court's failure to examine the merits of Wegner's Rule 33 motion is not reversible error, as we find there was no basis for withdrawal of his guilty plea. Initially, we note that the information in this case was sufficient to convey subject matter jurisdiction. An information is not jurisdictionally defective where it contains a statement of the territorial jurisdiction of the court and cites the applicable section(s) of the Idaho Code. State v. Quintero, 141 Idaho 619, 622, 115 P.3d 710, 713 (2005). Both of these were specified in this case, and the indictment alleged that the period of lewd conduct encompassed time after Wegner's fourteenth birthday. Secondly, pleading guilty to a crime entails an admission of the acts alleged by the state that constitute the charged offense, and in this case that included allegations of acts after Wegner turned fourteen. By pleading guilty, Wegner admitted those facts which were sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction. See I.C. § I.C. 19-1713 (stating that when entering a guilty plea, the defendant must admit that he is "guilty of the offense charged.").
The exception is the entry of an Alford plea, see North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), which is not at issue here.
Wegner argues, however, that State v. Kavajecz, 139 Idaho 482, 80 P.3d 1083 (2003), establishes that the district court here did not have jurisdiction to accept his guilty plea because it was not definitively established that he was at least fourteen at the time of an alleged act. In Kavajecz, the defendant was charged with lewd conduct with a minor, and, as in this case, the charging period spanned times both before and after his fourteenth birthday. Our Supreme Court addressed sua sponte whether the district court had authority to try Kavajecz where the trial evidence did not clearly show that any sexual contact with the victim occurred after the defendant turned fourteen. The court indicated that based on I.C. 18-216(2), the district court's ability to enter convictions against Kavajecz was called into question and ultimately stated that:
Because it was not determined at trial if the acts for which Kavajecz was convicted occurred when he was thirteen or fourteen years old, and where the evidence appears to indicate that the majority of these acts occurred when Kavajecz was thirteen, we vacate all of Kavajecz's convictions and remand his case back to the district court for a new trial, including a determination of whether Kavajecz could be convicted of any crime depending on when these acts took place.
Kavajecz at 485, 80 P.3d at 1086.
In Kavajecz, however, the jurisdiction issue arose because Kavajecz's age at the time of the offenses had not been proven by the state at trial. The Supreme Court remanded for a retrial, directing that there be a finding on the age issue. Thus, the jurisdictional question arose in Kavajecz as a result of a failure of proof at trial. In the present case, by contrast, Wegner admitted the facts establishing the district court's jurisdiction by pleading guilty. While Wegner is correct that acts of lewd conduct that he committed before his fourteenth birthday are not criminal acts over which any court has subject matter jurisdiction, by pleading guilty, Wegner admitted the indictment's allegations that some acts occurred after age fourteen, thus eliminating the need for the state to prove these allegations.
The district court correctly denied Wegner's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, albeit for the wrong reason. See State v. Pierce, 107 Idaho 96, 102, 685 P.2d 837, 843 (Ct.App. 1984) (Where a ruling is correct, although made upon an incorrect reason, it will be sustained upon the proper reason.).
B. Appointment of Counsel
Wegner also asserts that the court erred in denying his motion for appointment of counsel to assist in the pursuit of his Rule 33 motion. A criminal defendant is entitled to counsel at all stages of a criminal case, U.S. CONST. amends VI, XIV; IDAHO CONST. art. 1 § 13, unless a court determines the proceeding is not one that a reasonable person with adequate means would be willing to bring at his own expense and is therefore a frivolous proceeding. I.C. § 19-852(b)(3). See also State v. Wade, 125 Idaho 522, 523-24, 873 P.2d 167, 168-69 (Ct.App. 1994). The decision to appoint counsel in a post-judgment proceeding lies within the discretion of the district court. I.C. § 19-842(b)(3). Thus, on appeal, we apply an abuse of discretion standard. See Cowger v. State, 132 Idaho 681, 684, 978 P.2d 241, 244 (Ct.App. 1999).
As we discussed above, Wegner did not raise a valid issue regarding the district court's jurisdiction over the initial case and thus we conclude that his Rule 33 motion requesting that the district court allow the withdrawal of his guilty plea was frivolous. As such, the court did not err in declining to appoint counsel.
III. CONCLUSION
While we conclude that the district court erred in ruling that it did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate Wegner's Rule 33 motion, Wegner nevertheless failed to show that the district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction when he pled guilty to the charge, alleging he was fourteen years old at the time of the offense. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of Wegner's Rule 33 motion as well as its denial of his motion for appointment of counsel.
Chief Judge LANSING and Judge PERRY CONCUR.