Appellant Rodney Allen entered negotiated guilty pleas to multiple charges1 set out in two separate indictments on May 9, 2013. The trial court orally pronounced Allen’s sentence and signed the final disposition sentencing sheet on that same day, but the final disposition was not stamped filed by the Clerk of the Dougherty County Superior Court until May 16, 2013. On June 7, 2013, Allen filed a pro se motion to withdraw his guilty pleas, and following a hearing at which Allen was represented by counsel, the trial court denied his motion. Allen now appeals from the denial of his motion, arguing that the withdrawal of his pleas is necessary to correct a manifest injustice because he was incompetent at the time he entered his pleas and that he is now incarcerated and serving a mandatory minimum 10 year sentence with violent offenders despite having no prior history of committing violent crimes. As more fully set forth below, we now affirm.
1. We first consider the question of whether the motion to withdraw guilty plea was timely filed such that the trial court retained jurisdiction to determine the merits of the motion. See Rubiani v. State, 279 Ga. 299, 299 612 SE2d 798 2005 Once the term of court in which a defendant was sentenced has expired, the only available means for an appellant to withdraw his guilty plea is through habeas corpus proceedings.. Although no statute sets forth the procedures by which a motion to withdraw a guilty plea may be entertained by the trial court after a sentence has been pronounced,2 it is well settled that a motion to withdraw a guilty plea must be filed within the same term of court as the sentence entered on the guilty plea. Citation omitted. Lay v. State, 289 Ga. 210, 212 2 710 SE2d 141 2011. McKiernan v. State, 286 Ga. 756, 757 692 SE2d 340 2010; Davis v. State, 274 Ga. 865 561 SE2d 119 2002. This is a judicially created rule, which evolved from the established common law tenet that a court cannot set aside or alter a judgment after the expiration of the term at which it was entered, unless the proceeding for that purpose was begun during the original term. Citations omitted. McKiernan, 286 Ga. at 757.
