A trial judge has broad discretion regarding whether to accept a defendant’s guilty plea entered pursuant to a plea agreement in which the prosecutor has agreed to recommend a particular sentence. G.S. 15A-1023(b). In that circumstance, the judge must advise the parties whether he or she approves of the arrangement and will dispose of the case accordingly. If the judge rejects the arrangement, the judge must so inform the parties, refuse to accept the plea, and advise the State and the defendant that neither is bound by the rejected arrangement. The judge must tell the parties why he or she rejected the arrangement and give them an opportunity to modify it to meet the judge’s approval. The parties are not required to modify the arrangement, and, upon rejection of the arrangement, the defendant is entitled to have the case continued to the next session of court.
The judge’s rejection of the arrangement must be noted in the record, but such a rejection does not appear to preclude another judge from later accepting the arrangement. (The notation of the trial court’s discretionary decision arguably is not a discretionary order of the sort that would require changed circumstances to justify modification by another judge. See generally Michael Crowell, One Trial Judge Overruling Another, Administration of Justice Bulletin No. 2015/06 (UNC School of Government December 2015) (discussing the general rule that one trial judge may modify an order entered by another trial judge on a matter of discretion only if there has been a substantial change in circumstances)).
Those rules apply to a plea agreement in which the State has agreed to recommend a sentence. But what about arrangement where the State makes no such recommendation? Does the trial court retain discretion to reject those?
The short answer. No. The trial court does not have broad discretion to reject a plea agreement in which the State is not making a recommendation as to sentence. In that circumstance, the judge must accept the plea if the judge determines that the plea is the product of the informed choice of the defendant and there is a factual basis for the plea. G.S. 15A-1023(c).
This rule may come as a surprise to some. I think many people assume that the trial judge has authority to reject a plea agreement that he or she views as ill-advised, whether too harsh or too lenient. Where the plea agreement contains no recommendation as to sentence, however, the trial court does not have that authority. The State sets the terms, and if the defendant knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently agrees (and there is a factual basis), the court must accept the plea.
A case on point. In State v. Chandler, 376 N.C. 361 (2020), the North Carolina Supreme Court considered whether a plea had been improperly rejected and, if so, how to unring the bell of a improperly rejected plea. In Chandler, the defendant agreed to plead guilty to indecent liberties in exchange for the State dismissing the charge of first-degree sexual offense with a child. During the plea colloquy, the defendant stated he was guilty but went on to explain to the trial judge that he did not commit the act he was accused of perpetrating. He said he was pleading guilty to prevent his granddaughter (the victim) from “having to go through more trauma and go through court.” Id. at 363. This statement troubled the trial judge, who told the defendant that he was unwilling to accept a plea from a defendant who maintained his innocence. The judge explained:
“See, the easy thing for me to do is just take pleas and put people in jail or do whatever I need to do, or think is best for their sentence, and that’s easy. But I can’t lay down and go to sleep at night knowing that I put somebody in jail or entered a sentence of probation or whatever to something they did not do, or they say they did not do. I don’t know any of the facts of your case; I don’t know anything except what I just read in the indictment. That’s all I know. But when a man or woman says, I didn’t do something, that’s fine, I accept that.”
Id. at 364.
After rejecting the defendant’s plea, the trial court continued the case. At his next court date before a different judge, the defendant pled not guilty. He was thereafter convicted in a jury trial of both indecent liberties and first-degree sexual offense with a child. The sentence imposed for his convictions was more than three times the maximum sentence he faced under the plea agreement.
The defendant appealed, and the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed his conviction on the basis that the trial court improperly rejected his plea. Citing G.S. 15A-1023(c), the Court held that the trial court could only have rejected the plea if it found either (1) that the plea was not the product of defendant’s informed choice or (2) there was not a factual basis for the plea. The record showed that neither circumstance was satisfied, so the trial court’s rejection of the defendant’s plea was error. And the harsher sentence the defendant received upon conviction rendered the error prejudicial. The Court concluded that the proper remedy was to remand the case with an instruction to the district attorney to renew the original plea offer.
While Chandler did not involve a circumstance in which the trial court rejected the plea arrangement because it was too harsh or too lenient, the same analysis would apply to the rejection of a plea for those reasons. If there is no agreement as to sentence and the plea is the product of the defendant’s informed choice and is supported by a factual basis, the trial court has no authority to reject it because the court considers the arrangement ill-advised.
Further reading. You can read more about the law governing pleas and plea negotiations in this chapter from the NC Superior Court Judges’ Benchbook, which was updated in June 2024.