A defendant who pleaded guilty to multiple crimes allegedly committed due to mental illness but was denied trial when the plea was not accepted has had his conviction overturned.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that when Anthony Velazquez's guilty but mentally ill (GBMI) plea was incorrectly recorded as a standard guilty plea, the defendant's right to trial was violated. The three-judge panel agreed with Velazquez's claim that his lawyer was ineffective.

According to Judge Joseph Greenaway's opinion, the GBMI plea requires a defendant to waive the right to a jury trial in exchange for the promise of mental health treatment for the duration of the sentence. If a judge rejects the plea, the right to a jury trial is returned to the defendant.

But in Velazquez's case, the judge rejected the mental illness aspect of the guilty plea without reviewing the records and Velazquez was sent to prison after being convicted on burglary, assault and witness intimidation charges.

On appeal, Velazquez claimed his counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the defective plea process, Greenaway said.

"There is ample basis in the record to conclude that trial counsel was ignorant of the GBMI-plea procedures prescribed by Pennsylvania law," Greenaway said. "He concurred in the trial judge's suggestion that he would procure the necessary records and facilitate the requisite hearing, but failed to assure that this procedure was followed and failed to verify that the plea documents reflected the plea his client sought to enter. This falls below the performance expected of the counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment."

Prosecutors argued that Velazquez had to make a showing of whether another plea would have been available, accepted by both the petitioner and the court, and that the other plea offered "less severe" terms than the "judgment and sentence," Greenaway said.

However, Greenaway added, Velazquez did not need to be bound by that standard to show prejudice.

"Velazquez does not need to demonstrate that his GBMI plea is likely to be accepted or that a favorable finding of severe mental illness will result. Nor does he need to demonstrate that the outcome of the two findings will be a lesser sentence," Greenaway said. "We will find prejudice if there is a reasonable probability that, but for trial counsel's failure to object to the defective plea procedure, Velazquez would have taken advantage of the process of which he was deprived. The record is unequivocal that this is the case. The only hindrance to Velazquez's efforts to enter a GBMI plea was the constitutionally defective assistance he received from trial counsel."

Travis Anderson of the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office declined to comment.

Rosemary Auge, Velazquez's public defender, also did not respond to a request for comment.