STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. A.L.

 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0563-05T4

DOCKET NO. A-2306-05T4

CONSOLIDATED

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

A.L.,

Defendant-Appellant.

_________________________________

 

Submitted January 31, 2007 - Decided April 4, 2007

Before Judges Wefing and Messano.

On appeal from Superior Court of New

Jersey, Law Division, Monmouth County,

No. 01-06-0997.

Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender,

attorney for appellant (Robert P. Williams,

Designated Counsel, of counsel and on the

brief).

Luis A. Valentin, Monmouth County Prosecutor,

attorney for respondent (Patricia B. Quelch,

Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).

Appellant submitted a pro se supplemental brief.

PER CURIAM

Defendant appeals from the trial court's order denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. After reviewing the record in light of the contentions advanced on appeal, we affirm.

Defendant was charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault, sexual penetration of a child less than thirteen years of age, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2a(1); three counts of second-degree sexual assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2b, -2c(1), and -2c(4); and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4a. He eventually entered a negotiated plea of guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and the trial court sentenced him to concurrent three-year terms on probation and dismissed the remaining counts of the indictment. Among the conditions imposed at the time of sentencing was that defendant, a Nigerian national who is in this country on a student visa, report these convictions to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Defendant later filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, which the trial court denied. Thereafter, two notices of appeal were filed on behalf of defendant. In A-563-05T4, defendant appealed from the trial court's denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. In A-2306-05T5, defendant appealed from the trial court's order denying his pre-trial motion to suppress. We consolidated these appeals.

Two briefs have been filed on defendant's behalf, one by his attorney, and one that he has submitted pro se.

We turn first to the issue raised in the brief filed by defendant's attorney, which raises one contention, that the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea. In connection with that motion, the trial court (which had also taken defendant's guilty plea and imposed sentence on defendant) held a plenary hearing at which defendant, his mother and his trial counsel all testified. Defendant asserted in his testimony that his attorney never advised him that entering this guilty plea exposed him to the risk of deportation. Indeed, he said his attorney told him that he would not be deported for the offenses to which he had pled guilty. He also testified that he had not spoken truthfully when he told the judge at the plea hearing that he was guilty. He said he pled guilty because his attorney told him he would not get a fair trial in a post-September 11 environment and that if he were convicted at trial, he would go to prison for fifty years.

The testimony of defendant's attorney was to the contrary. He testified that he advised defendant of the potential consequences with regard to his not being permitted to remain in this country but that he also told defendant he was not an expert in immigration law. He supplied defendant with the name of an attorney he knew who practiced in that field. The attorney also denied that he ever told defendant he would not get a fair trial because of public reaction to the events of September 11.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court put its decision on the record. The trial court rejected as not credible defendant's testimony that he had not been advised of the risk of deportation. The trial court noted that the plea form completed by defendant specifically noted the possibility of deportation. The trial court also noted, and read from the transcript of the plea proceedings where the trial court itself had questioned defendant in this regard at the time he entered his guilty plea.

The trial court indicated that it was satisfied that there was no manifest injustice in maintaining defendant's guilty plea. R. 3:21-1. Having reviewed this record in detail, we are entirely satisfied the trial court was correct in its judgment, and we have no basis to overturn its decision in this regard. R. 2:11-3(e)(2).

We turn now to defendant's pro se brief, in which he asserts the following points:

POINT ONE

THE JUDGE ERRED IN [] DENYING THE MOTION TO WITHDRAW THE GUILTY PLEA.

POINT TWO

FORMER ATTORNEY WAS INEFFECTIVE IN REGARDS TO ABA RULES THAT GOVERN DEFENSE ATTORNEY IN RESPECT TO IMMIGRANT CLIENTS.

POINT THREE

PLEA WAS NOT VOLUNTARILY ACCEPTED WITH KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHTS THAT WERE BEING GIVEN AWAY.

POINT FOUR

ARREST WAS ILLEGAL DUE TO VIOLATIONS OF CERTAIN RIGHTS UNDER THE U.S. CONSTITUTION (VCCR).

The substance of defendant's first three arguments in his pro se brief is the same as that which we have rejected with regard to his knowledge of the potential of his deportation following his guilty plea. There is no need for us to repeat what we have set forth earlier in this opinion.

In his final point, defendant points to provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, specifically to the fact that the Nigerian consulate was not notified of his arrest. The Prosecutor's Office concedes that the record contains no indication that the Nigerian consulate was, in fact, notified. That omission, however, does not inure to defendant's benefit. "[A] violation of the Convention does not warrant the suppression of a statement taken from a foreign national which would be otherwise admissible in our courts of law." State v. Cabrera, 387 N.J. Super. 81, 86 (App. Div. 2006).

Affirmed.

 

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6

A-0563-05T4

RECORD IMPOUNDED

April 4, 2007