The court would not give credibility to defendant’s “subjective self-assessment and self-diagnosis of incompetence.” The court refused to allow defendant to withdraw his plea of guilty.
Defendant pled guilty after multiple proffer meetings and negotiations that had started some six months earlier. That plea agreement secured for him a sentence of incarceration some seven years under the otherwise mandatory minimum prison time he was facing. However, when he faced actual sentencing, defendant sought to withdraw his guilty plea, alleging in effect “transitory incompetence.” He argued that despite his answers at a lengthy guilty plea colloquy, he was not in a proper mental state because of the death of his grandfather.
