Brown v. Idaho

In 2012, Rayland Brown was charged by indictment with the felony crime of forcible sexual penetration by use of a foreign object. On the second day of Brown’s jury trial, he and the State agreed to a written plea agreement. One of the provisions of the plea agreement was that the charge would be amended to felony domestic battery. On the same date, the State filed an information charging the crime of felony domestic battery, and Brown pled guilty to that charge. The district court sentenced Brown, and in accordance with the plea agreement the court retained jurisdiction for 365 days. A year later, the court entered an order relinquishing jurisdiction, which resulted in Brown being required to serve a prison sentence of at least fifteen years and up to twenty years, with credit for 483 days already served. Brown filed a motion for reconsideration, and the court reduced the mandatory portion of the prison sentence from fifteen years to eleven years. Brown then filed this civil action seeking post-conviction relief on the ground that he received ineffective assistance of counsel in his criminal case. The district court interpreted the alleged ineffective assistance as being that his counsel advised him that he would receive probation after the period of retained jurisdiction and failed to object to the court’s alleged deviation from the plea agreement. The district court dismissed the petition for post-conviction relief because the court in the underlying case did not deviate from the plea agreement and the plea agreement, which Brown signed, notified him that he may not receive probation because it expressly provided that “[a]t the end of the period of retained jurisdiction, the court would be free to exercise or relinquish jurisdiction in its discretion.” Brown then appealed, challenging whether the court in his criminal case had subject-matter jurisdiction. The Supreme Court concluded Brown could not raise that issue for the first time on appeal in this civil action, and affirmed the judgment in this case. View "Brown v. Idaho" on Justia Law