98911, People v. Baez

Mr. Baez’s only hope was to plead guilty to the case.” Similarly, thecourt called the affidavit’s assertion that defendant was “despondent”at Granich’s removal “a lie.” The court noted that defendant was“pleasant and happy when he left this courtroom that day.”Finally, the court summarized its findings:“Mr. Baez always wanted to plead guilty in this case. Henever retained Mr. Granich. Mr. Granich misled this courtwhen I first appointed him. It was certainly a mistake on mypart, which I corrected immediately.It had nothing to do with the Capital Crimes LitigationFund. I mean my decision had nothing to do with it. Mydecision was that the defendant had not retained counsel. If hehad retained counsel and paid for him to represent him,certainly he would have had the right to keep him if he paidhim. He did not.He has the right to counsel, but not counsel of hischoosing unless he retains them. When he is appointedcounsel, then the Court appoints counsel that they believeshould be appointed, and that is, in my mind, the publicdefender’s office.In terms of his guilty plea, it was freely and voluntarilyentered. There was no mistake of law on his part. There wasno mistake of law in this case. He did not plead guilty becausehis, quote, unquote, champion had been removed. He pledguilty because he wanted, quote, closure, as he said, in hismind for the horrendous offenses that he had perpetrated ontwo innocent people.Of course, the demands on my calendar, as I said, werecertainly an issue in this case, that I was going to have thecase delayed, possibly substitute counsel and a lawyer whodidn’t know when or if he was coming back.* * *Again, as I said, the defendant in this case wanted to pleadguilty, always wanted to plead guilty, was never denied a rightto counsel. He pled guilty because he had no choice. He wasgoing to be convicted, and anyone who heard the facts of thiscase was going to sentence Mr. Baez to death.”-48-