Criminal Procedure — plea withdrawal

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Wisconsin Court of Appeals

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — plea withdrawal

When a good-faith legal error is made at the plea hearing regarding the maximum periods of initial confinement and extended supervision permitted by Wisconsin law, and when that error was corrected at the sentencing hearing, to the defendant’s benefit, there is no manifest injustice.

“We reject Lichty’s assertion that viewing the State’s corrected recommendation as a shorter sentence ‘ignores the interrelationship between the two components of a bifurcated sentence.’ While it is no doubt true that ‘defendants are concerned with the amount of initial confinement they are facing at sentencing,’ this generalization is no basis for inferring manifest injustice in Lichty’s case, where the legal mistake made during negotiation of the plea agreement was so minor, particularly when viewed in the context of all of the favorable consequences of Lichty’s plea. See Cross, 326 Wis. 2d 492, ¶59 (Abrahamson, C.J., concurring) (‘I cannot conclude that the misinformation about the potential punishment, arising from a good faith mistake of all involved, defeated the knowing, voluntary, and intelligent nature of Cross’s guilty plea.’). Lichty cannot and does not point to any specific facts to show why it would have made any difference to him at the time of his plea agreement if he had known that the twelve and one-half year sentence he faced might be bifurcated into seven and one-half years of confinement and five years of extended supervision, rather than six years of each, much less can he show that the error and its correction prejudiced him or deprived him of the benefit he bargained for. To the contrary, the State ultimately recommended a sentence even more favorable than what it had promised to recommend.”

Affirmed.

Recommended for publication in the official reports.

2011AP2873-CR State v. Lichty

Dist. II, Ozaukee County, Malloy, J., Brown, J.

Attorneys: For Appellant: Grau, John J., Waukesha; For Respondent: Gerol, Adam Y., Port Washington; Tarver, Sandra L., Madison