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461 F.2d 1109

Docket No. 71-1949.

Roland Wayne Wright v. Walter E. Craven, Warden

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

June 19, 1972.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1972-06-19

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“may not be accepted unless the defendant understands the consequences of the admission.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Creswell v. Estelle, Adams v. Rs Peterson Osci

“under California law an admission by a defendant of prior felony convictions, where those convictions are to be used to enhance his sentence on the present offense, is the 'functional equivalent' of a plea of guilty to a separate charge, and, therefore, it may not be accepted unless the defendant understands the consequences of the admission.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Jess Cancino v. Walter E. Craven

Relies on 325 F. Supp. 1253 - Wright v. Craven · Edison R. Womack v. Walter E. Craven, Warden

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by Per Curiam · Decided 1972-06-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 55 later decisions — most recently August 2009 · most notably Adams v. Rs Peterson Osci (1992), United States v. Segal (1977)

36 federal appellate · 1 district · 10 state decisions

2101972198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Don Jacobson, Deputy Atty. Gen. (argued), Don Johnson, Deputy Atty. Gen., Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., San Francisco, Cal., for defendant-appellant.

Charles G. Miller (argued), of McKenna & Fitting, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before KOELSCH, HUFSTEDLER and GOODWIN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

¶1

The District Court, in this habeas corpus action, ruled that under California law an admission by a defendant of prior felony convictions, where those convictions are to be used to enhance his sentence on the present offense, is the "functional equivalent" of a plea of guilty to a separate charge [see, Womack v. Craven, 431 F.2d 1191, 1192 (9th Cir. 1970)], and, therefore, it may not be accepted unless the defendant understands the consequences of the admission. We are in accord with the analysis of the court in its well-reasoned opinion, reported at 325 F.Supp. 1253.

¶2

After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the District Court found that petitioner Wright was not aware of the consequences of his admission of prior convictions, and granted the writ. As the findings are supported by the evidence, we affirm the judgment for the reasons stated in the District Court opinion.

Affirmed.1

1

We note that the writ granted by the District Court merely sets aside petitioner's admission, and bars the State of California from imposing habitual offender punishment based upon that admission. As in cases where guilty pleas are vacated, the State is not precluded by this judgment from conducting further proceedings on the issue

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