State v. Dickens

Judge CLARK

dissenting.

Withdrawal of a guilty plea should be permitted and the judgment of conviction set aside if the plea was improperly taken, if the defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel, or if the plea bargain was broken.

The plea was improperly taken if the trial court accepted the plea without first determining that there was a factual basis for the plea as required by G.S. 15A-1022(c). This statutory requirement is similar to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and probably was inspired by the decision in North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 27 L.Ed. 2d…