Earl Warren

“ There is no adequate substitute for demonstrating in the record at the time the plea is entered the defendant's understanding of the nature of the charge against him.
The wisdom of Rule 11's requirements and the difficulty of achieving its purposes through a post-conviction voluntariness hearing are particularly apparent in this case. Petitioner, who was 65 years old and in poor health at the time he entered his plea, had been suffering from a serious drinking problem during the time he allegedly evaded his taxes. ”

“ Before the plea was accepted, however, the prosecutor asked the judge to inquire whether it had been induced by any threats or promises. In response to the judge's inquiry, petitioner replied that his plea was not the product of either. He stated that it was entered of his 'own volition.' The court ordered a presentence investigation and continued the case to September 14, 1966. [1]
At the commencement of the sentencing hearing on September 14, petitioner asserted that his failure to pay taxes was 'not deliberate' and that they would have been paid if he had not been in poor health. ”

“ Sokol (petitioner's counsel) : * * * If the Court please, apart from the wrecking of his physical health that has attended a number of the problems that relate to the drinking in this case, this man has experienced a kind of punishment, self-inflicted, which almost is a categorical listing of how he flees, actually, and I use that word advisedly, flees from consequence to punishment to additional consequence. It is a sad thing when at the age of sixty-five a man who has been able to rear, with the help of his wife, a fine family, has to leave a legacy such as this. ”

“ Sokol: * * * When a man is neglectful and adopts a kind of a devious way of secreting himself from the government, that is one thing, and we are mindful they are kind of indicia of fraud. But where a man's pattern is neglect of not only something like this-he is sloppy with respect to that, but in gross, in gross, unaccountable, so to speak. ”

“ Moreover, since the elements of the offense were not explained to petitioner, and since the specific acts of tax evasion do not appear of record, it is also possible that if petitioner had been adequately informed he would have concluded that he was actually guilty of one of two closely related lesser included offenses, which are mere misdemeanors. ”

“ Fed.Rule Crim.Proc. 11, Notes of Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules.↑ During 1968 approximately 86% (22,055 out of 25,674) of all convictions obtained in the United States district courts were pursuant to a plea of guilty or its substantial equivalent, a plea of nolo contendere. 1968 Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts Ann.Rep. ”

“ In all such inquiries, ' (m) atters of reality, and not mere ritual, should be controlling.' Kennedy v. United States, 397 F.2d 16, 17 (C.A.6th Cir. 1968) .↑ After two separate panels had applied Heiden retroactively without discussion in Geter v. United States, 353 F.2d 208 (1965) , and Freeman v. United States, 350 F.2d 940, 943 (1965) , in a subsequent en banc decision the Ninth Circuit held that it would not apply Heiden to cases in which the guilty plea was accepted before the date on which Heiden was decided. Castro v. ”