Burch v. State

Plea counsel was not deficient for telling the defendant that she had to answer right then whether she wanted to accept the state's negotiated plea offer, since counsel testified that the defendant immediately and strongly rejected the offer and indicated that she would never accept it.

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Tokeisha Burch appeals from the trial court’s order denying her motion to withdraw her guilty plea to theft by shoplifting. Burch contends the trial court should have granted her motion because she received ineffective assistance of counsel. We disagree and affirm. Burch contends that her counsel was ineffective because counsel failed to tell her that the State’s negotiated plea offer had a time limit. Burch claims that she would have accepted the plea if she had known that there was a time limit. The two-part Strickland v. Washington test applies to challenges to guilty pleas based on ineffective assistance of counsel. In the context of guilty pleas, the first half of the Strickland v. Washington test is nothing more than a restatement of the standard of attorney competence . . . . The second, or “prejudice,” requirement, on the other hand, focuses on whether counsel’s constitutionally ineffective performance affected the outcome of the plea process.Citations omitted. Hill v. Lockhart , 474 U. S. 52, 59 106 SC 366, 88 LE2d 203 1985.

In cases alleging that counsel provided ineffective assistance of counsel during plea negotiations, there are two different standards for assessing prejudice, depending upon whether the defendant accepted or rejected the plea offer.1 The facts of this case do not fall squarely within either rule for determining prejudice, because Burch rejected a negotiated plea offer and later entered a “blind” or non-negotiated guilty plea. We need not determine which prejudice rule applies,2 however, because the trial court’s ruling that trial counsel’s performance was not defective is otherwise supported by the record. Dawson v. State , 271 Ga. App. 217, 219 2 609 SE2d 158 2005 trial court’s findings on ineffectiveness of counsel will not be disturbed if there is any evidence to support them.

Burch v. State

Plea counsel was not deficient for telling the defendant that she had to answer right then whether she wanted to accept the state's negotiated plea offer, since counsel testified that the defendant immediately and strongly rejected the offer and indicated that she would never accept it.

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