I find Hernandez quite confusing. It appears the defendant (possibly during a jury trial) changed his plea to guilty without any inducement from the State. But, before changing his plea, Hernandez had offered some evidence of an affirmative defense (duress). The court declined to let the jury hear about the duress. This was supposedly part of the reason for the change in plea. The Waco court rules Young (a case where a jury was waived) means Hernandez can complain about the court's ruling upon appeal, despite the fact that a plea of guilty before a jury normally waives any challenge to the sufficiency of the proof of guilt or the need for the jury to pass on any defensive issue. See Jackson, 236 S.W.2d 623 and King, 687 S.W.2d at 765-6. Were these cases overruled by Young? In Mendez, 138 S.W.3d 334, the court seemed to note that this situation was much like that in Alford, i.e., the defendant could be permitted to plead guilty with misgivings and still be bound by his plea.

I'm confused as to why the trial judge would sustain an objection seeking to keep the defendant's testimony from admission. Whether you believe it or not, the defendant clearly testified he was delivering drugs because he thought he or his family would get hurt if he didn't do it. Sometimes, you just have to trust the jury to know the truth.

I also don't have a problem seeing that the decision (What? I'm agreeing with the Waco Court of Appeals?) is consistent with Young. The defendant's guilty plea does seem to be the direct result of the judge ruling against him on the issue of the admissibility of his defense. How is that any different than a defendant who pleads guilty after losing a motion to suppress?

The difference is his plea was to a jury. There has been a difference (at least as to events occurring prior to the plea) between the effect of a guilty plea before the court and before a jury. Apparently that is no longer to be true.

My point is that the defendant is getting his cake (appearing to be coming clean with the jury) but still challenging later how his guilt was determined. That seems inconsistent. In other words, are there really any contested issues where you choose to plead guilty? Would the court's charge have been required to submit an issue on duress despite the guilty plea?

[This message was edited by Martin Peterson on 03-30-06 at .]

The point of the majority seems to be that he would not have pled guilty but for the trial court's refusal to submit the defense of duress. He didn't get his cake.

Although one might say, as you have suggested, that he is seeking to mitigate his punishment by pleading guilty, that's a different subject than whether he was guilty or innocent.

I suppose he could have sat on the not guilty plea, gotten convicted, and then appealed the denial of the defensive issue. What's the difference to the prosecutor? If anything, the prosecutor benefits from the approach taken by the defendant in this case, because the prosecutor avoided any risk of a not guilty.

The bottom line is that the prosecutor should not have resisted putting the defensive issue before the jury.