Dieudonne v. State

OPINION

By the Court, Cherry, J.:

In this appeal, we consider whether a criminal defendant holds an absolute right to be sentenced by the judge who accepted his or her plea. We conclude that there is no such right absent an express agreement or indication by the defendant that the plea was entered with that expectation. In this case, there was no such express agreement, and we decline to imply one based on the judge’s use of a personal pronoun during the plea canvass, particularly given the defendant’s failure to object to proceeding with sentencing before a different judge. We also take this…