Plea Withdrawal

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Ricky Olson

Case No.: 16-3583

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and KANNE, Circuit Judges

Focus: Plea Withdrawal

We do not know whether Ricky Olson entered a voluntary and intelligent guilty plea on September 9, 2016, because the district court never asked the right questions. Several weeks earlier, the court had granted Olson’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea and to proceed to trial. But matters did not rest there. Instead, on September 9 the district court brought the motion to withdraw the guilty plea back to life (that is, the one it had already disposed of), and this time summarily denied it. The court ultimately sentenced Olson to 180 months of incarceration and 20 years of supervised release. On appeal, Olson complains that the irregular proceedings surrounding his plea failed to comply with the rules of criminal procedure. We agree with him. Because the September 9 proceedings resulted in a new change of plea, which the district court accepted without conducting the colloquy required by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11, we reverse and remand.

Reversed and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.