Attorney for Appellant
Angela Sims
Hulse Lacey Hardacre Austin & Shine, P.C.
Anderson, IN
Attorneys for Appellee
Steve Carter
Attorney General of Indiana
Christopher Lafuse
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, IN
IN THE
INDIANA SUPREME COURT
HAROLD S. MAPP,
Appellant (Defendant below),
v.
STATE OF INDIANA,
Appellee (Plaintiff below).
)
) Supreme Court No.
) 48S02-0108-CR-362
)
) Court of Appeals No.
) 48A02-0006-CR-368
)
)
)
APPEAL FROM THE MADISON CIRCUIT COURT
The Honorable Fredrick R. Spencer, Judge
Cause No. 48C01-9903-CF-074
PETITION TO TRANSFER
June 28, 2002
SULLIVAN, Justice.
Harold Mapp pled guilty to cocaine possession and delivering charges
and was sentenced to a total of twenty years. We uphold his guilty plea
conviction and sentence, finding that in pleading guilty to his crimes, he
waived the right to contest his guilty plea on double jeopardy grounds.
Background
Defendant Harold Mapp was the subject of a “sting operation” by the
Indianapolis Police Department in which a confidential informant made a
controlled purchase of crack cocaine from Defendant through an intermediary
named Leon Earl. During this controlled buy at Defendant’s house, the
confidential informant saw Defendant give the requested crack to Earl, in
return for the confidential informant’s money. The confidential informant
also observed a bag from which Defendant withdrew the crack rock given to
Earl, and then to the confidential informant.
The police returned later that day with a warrant and searched the
house where the crack was purchased. The police found Defendant in an
upstairs bedroom with a certain amount of money on his person and a bag of
crack located nearby. Money seized matched the money given by the police
to the confidential informant, and used to buy the cocaine earlier that
day.
Defendant was arrested, and charged with two counts. Count I was
“possession of an amount of cocaine weighing more than (3) grams with the
intent to deliver this cocaine to another person,” a class A felony. Count
II was “knowingly deliver cocaine to another person,” a class B felony.
Rather than face trial, Defendant entered into a plea agreement with the
State in which he pled guilty to both counts in return for Count I being
reduced from a Class A felony to a Class B felony. He was sentenced to
twenty years for Count I and fifteen years for Count II, with the sentences
to run concurrently, for a total of twenty years.
The Court of Appeals, in an unpublished memorandum decision, vacated
Mapp’s guilty plea as to Count II. Mapp v. State, No. 48A02-0006-CR-368
(Ind. Ct. App. Feb. 15, 2001). The court reasoned that because it was
clear from the face of the charging instrument that the two counts violated
double jeopardy principles, the plea agreement was invalid. Id., slip op.
at 6. We granted transfer. Mapp v. State, 761 N.E.2d 415 (Ind. 2001)
(table).
Discussion
I
Before addressing the merits, we address the procedural posture of
this case. Defendant is before us on a direct appeal challenging the
propriety of a plea agreement, not on appeal from the denial of post-
conviction relief. In Tumulty v. State, we reiterated our long-standing
rule that a direct appeal is not the proper procedural avenue for a
defendant to attack a plea agreement. 666 N.E.2d 394, 395 (Ind. 1996).[1]
Tumulty reviewed the policy reasons for this rule, one of which is that
such claims often require a factual inquiry which appellate courts are not
equipped to conduct. The common challenges to the validity of plea
agreements – whether there was an adequate factual basis for the plea;
whether the plea was knowing, voluntary, and intelligent; whether the
defendant was the victim of ineffective assistance of counsel – almost
always require factual determinations. The proper venue for challenging a
plea agreement is the filing a petition for post-conviction relief, thereby
triggering a procedure in which the facts can be litigated. Id., see Ind.
Post-Conviction R. 1.
Assuming for the moment that Defendant’s legal claim is correct,
there is still a predicate factual dispute to be resolved. Defendant
contends that he was charged twice for essentially the same criminal
conduct – the sale and possession of the same quantity of cocaine. In
rebuttal, the State contends that there is evidence to show two separate
charges were sustainable. This is the kind of factual dispute that a post-
conviction trial court is suited to resolving and that an appellate court
is not.
However, because the State did not argue either to the Court of
Appeals or to us that we should dismiss this appeal as improper, we elect
to address the claim on the merits.
II
The State contends that the Court of Appeals erred when it vacated
Mapp’s conviction following his guilty plea to Count II. In reversing, the
Court of Appeals held that an exception to the general rule that guilty
pleas waive the right to appeal one’s conviction on double jeopardy grounds
applies where charges are “facially duplicative.” Mapp, slip op. at 4.
Finding that the charges filed against Mapp for possessing cocaine with
intent to distribute and dealing cocaine were “facially duplicative,” it
vacated Mapp’s plea agreement with the State. Id., slip op. at 6.
We find that Mapp waived his right to challenge his convictions on
double jeopardy grounds when he entered his plea agreement. This principle
was most recently affirmed in Games v. State, 743 N.E.2d 1132, 1135 (Ind.
2001). We further hold that there is no exception to this rule for
“facially duplicative” charges. [2]
Plea bargaining is a tool used by both prosecutors and defendants to
expedite the trial process.[3] Defendants waive a whole panoply of rights
by voluntarily pleading guilty. These include the right to a jury trial,
the right against self-incrimination, the right of appeal, and the right to
attack collaterally one’s plea based on double jeopardy. See Ind. Code §35-
35-1-2(a)(2) (1998); Games, 743 N.E.2d at 1135. We see no basis for a
different rule for facially duplicative charges. To hold otherwise would
deprive both prosecutors and defendants of the ability to make precisely
the kind of bargain that was made here. That would not be in the interest
of either the State or of defendants.
Here, Mapp had a choice. He could either plead guilty to the two
crimes with which he was charged – possession of cocaine with intent to
distribute and dealing cocaine – or go to trial. In return for his guilty
plea, the prosecution agreed to reduce Count I, possession with intent to
deliver, from a Class A felony to a Class B felony. This reduction in
crime class exposed Mapp to a lesser sentence. Mapp received the benefit
of having his maximum possible sentence on any one count reduced from 50
years in prison down to 20 years. In fact, after Mapp pled guilty, the
trial court sentenced him to 20 years for Count I, and 15 years for Count
II, with the sentences to run concurrently.
Conclusion
Having granted transfer, the Court of Appeals decision is vacated
pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 58A. The judgment of the trial court is
affirmed.
SHEPARD, C.J., and DICKSON, BOEHM, and RUCKER, J.J., concur.
-----------------------
[1] Although a defendant is prohibited from contesting the contents of a
plea agreement on direct appeal, Tumulty, 666 N.E.2d at 395, a defendant is
entitled to contest on direct appeal the merits of a trial court's
sentencing discretion, id. at 396, and discretion in denying the withdrawal
of a guilty plea, Brightman v. State, 758 N.E.2d 41, 44 (Ind. 2001).
[2] The Court of Appeals referred to its decision in Odom v. State, 647
N.E.2d 377 (Ind. Ct. App. 1995), trans. denied, as authority for the
proposition that a plea to “facially duplicative” charges is impermissible.
Odom’s holding to this effect appears to reflect a misunderstanding of
Menna v. New York, 423 U.S. 61, 62 (1975), which held that a defendant who
has pled guilty to charges which are facially duplicative of previous
convictions is entitled to challenge the resulting convictions. The
charges Mapp challenges may duplicate each other but they do not duplicate
“previous convictions.” In any event, Menna only applies to challenges
under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment; Mapp has not
claimed that any federal double jeopardy violation has occurred.
(Appellant’s Br. at 5)
[3] “In an era of crowded court dockets and a limited number of judges to
hear those growing dockets, defendants who plead guilty save valuable
judicial time and resources.” Trueblood v. State, 715 N.E.2d 1242, 1256
(Ind. 1999), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 858 (2000).