AI Generated Opinion Summaries

This summary was computer-generated without any editorial revision. It is not official, has not been checked for accuracy, and is NOT citable.

Facts

• Carlos Gomez was charged with nineteen criminal offenses across six cases over several months in 2007 and 2008, including drug possession, trafficking, and other related crimes. To resolve all charges, Gomez entered into three separate plea agreements with the State, each stipulating that he could serve zero to nine years of incarceration, supervised probation, treatment, or a combination thereof, with sentences to be served concurrently (paras 2-3).

Procedural History

• [Not applicable or not found]

Parties' Submissions

• State: Agreed to dismiss remaining charges in exchange for Gomez's guilty pleas and his admission as a habitual offender. The State consented to plea agreements specifying zero to nine years of incarceration, supervised probation, treatment, or a combination, with sentences to run concurrently (paras 2-6).
• Defendant-Appellant: Agreed to plead guilty to specified charges across three plea agreements, admitting habitual offender status. Gomez consented to the terms of serving zero to nine years under conditions that could include incarceration, supervised probation, or treatment, with all sentences to be concurrent (paras 2-6).

Legal Issues

• Whether the district court's imposition of a twenty-one-year sentence, with sixteen years suspended, resulting in five years of actual incarceration plus five years of supervised probation, conformed to the plea agreements stipulating a maximum of nine years of incarceration, supervised probation, treatment, or a combination thereof (para 1).

Disposition

• The Court of Appeals reversed the district court's judgment and sentence, remanding for entry of a judgment and sentence that conforms to the plea agreements (para 1).

Reasons

• The Court of Appeals, with Judge Michael E. Vigil authoring the opinion, and Judges Jonathan B. Sutin and Timothy L. Garcia concurring, found that the district court misconstrued the plea agreements by sentencing Gomez to a term exceeding the agreed maximum of nine years. The plea agreements were unambiguous in limiting Gomez's sentence to a maximum of nine years, to be served concurrently across all cases. The court emphasized that a plea agreement is a contract that must be interpreted in favor of the defendant in case of ambiguity and that the terms should be understood as what a defendant reasonably believed at the time of the plea. The appellate court rejected the State's interpretation that the term "serve" could include a suspended sentence exceeding nine years. It concluded that the district court's sentence violated the clear terms of the plea agreements and due process, necessitating remand for sentencing in accordance with the agreements (paras 9-18).