Commonwealth v. Sherman

Summary

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the defendant’s guilty pleas to rape and assault were intelligent and voluntary. The court concluded that his admissions during the plea colloquy sufficiently implied the sexual-intercourse element of rape and that procedural deviations during the colloquy did not warrant withdrawal of the pleas. The order granting a new trial was reversed.

Holdings

1. The guilty pleas were intelligent because the defendant's admissions that he forcibly raped the victim when she refused to have sex voluntarily, together with the surrounding facts he admitted, sufficiently established the sexual or unnatural sexual intercourse element of rape.
2. The pleas were voluntary because the judge conducted a sufficient inquiry into whether Sherman was under coercion, duress, or improper inducement.
3. An express verbal determination was not required; the judge's determination that the pleas were voluntary and intelligent could be inferred from the record, including acceptance of the pleas and imposition of the jointly recommended sentence.
4. The clerk's announcement that the court accepted the pleas did not require withdrawal of the pleas because the judge's silence while the clerk announced the decision, together with docket entry of the pleas, sufficiently reflected the judge's acceptance.
5. The judge's misstatement of the maximum sentence and failure to state that he would not exceed the agreed recommendation did not require withdrawal because Sherman received the agreed sentence and suffered no prejudice.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the defendant's guilty pleas were unintelligent because the plea-hearing admissions did not establish the sexual or unnatural sexual intercourse element of rape.
2. Whether the plea colloquy adequately established that the pleas were voluntary.
3. Whether the judge's failure to expressly determine that the pleas were voluntary and intelligent violated Mass. R. Crim. P. 12(a)(2).
4. Whether the clerk's announcement, rather than the judge's express statement, that the pleas were accepted violated Mass. R. Crim. P. 12(c)(5)(B).
5. Whether the judge's misstatement of the maximum sentence and failure to advise that the agreed sentence would not be exceeded required withdrawal of the pleas under Mass. R. Crim. P. 12(c)(2) or (3).

Disposition

reversed