People v. Chilton

On September 28, 1971,1 defendant pled nolo contendere to armed robbery. In exchange the prosecutor dropped two other armed robbery charges. Before accepting defendant’s plea,2 Circuit Judge James Schoener, in an attempt to establish a sufficient factual basis to support the plea, read into the record a portion of the preliminary examination transcript. A portion of the transcript was paraphrased by Judge Schoener while the more pertinent portions were read verbatim.

The Court of Appeals denied a delayed application for appeal.

The issue is whether a factual basis for a nolo contendere plea (in…