State v. James

This appeal arises from the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to withdraw his plea of guilty in this matter. We address the critical issue of whether, under our rules of practice, the failure of the trial court, prior to accepting the *359defendant’s plea, to advise him of the maximum possible sentence to which he would be exposed, constituted reversible error.

The salient facts are as follows. On February 11, 1981, the defendant was a passenger in a vehicle driven by Wesley Jackson. At approximately 2 p.m., police officers stopped the vehicle to check Jackson’s motor vehicle license.…