This question will amaze some of you and show you how different El Paso County is from the rest of the state....

The plea paperwork for negotiated guilty pleas used in our district courts must be approved by the local Council of Judges. The plea paperwork now in use lacks any requirement that the defendant agree to waive his right to appeal as part of the deal.

I'd like to add the appeal-waiver paragraphs from page 152 of John Bradley's book "The Perfect Plea." But here at the El Paso DA's office, we fear that at least several judges will object to adding the appeal waiver language as being "unfair" or something like that. Like I said, we're different out here.

Please help me with some arguments in favor of adding the appeal waiver to our plea paperwork!

I would think that one of the biggest incentives for the State to enter into an agreed punishment recommendation would be to secure a waiver of appeal. If a judge will not accept a recommendation based on anything other than pre-approved paperwork (generated by the council of judges rather than the parties to the agreement) then I suppose you have no alternative but to continue to use whatever the judges feel comfortable with. After Blanco there is no doubt concerning the validity of getting the waiver as part of the bargain. It is hard for me to envision why a court would want to encourage appeals from negotiated plea bargains. The judge who I practice before takes exactly the opposite stance. He will not approve plea bargains that do not involve waiver of appeal (which forces us to trial in cases involving exclusively questions of law). Go figure. Maybe you could point to the decision of the legislature on this topic as discussed in Young, 8 S.W.3d at 665 and other cases: "The main thrust of the 1977 amendment was to eliminate appeals where the defendant had entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere before the court as a result of a plea bargain and the punishment assessed did not exceed that agreed upon. The same legislature enacted another amendment to curtail the right to bail pending appeal. Taken together, these two acts were aimed at eliminating, or reducing, the ability of plea-bargaining defendants to delay the execution of their sentences by taking meritless appeals (known colloquially
as "street" appeals which were decided by "windy" opinions)."


Does your situation grow out of the former reported practice in El Paso that Simmons never offered to settle a criminal case without a trial or open plea?

[This message was edited by Martin Peterson on 04-03-03 at .]