State v. Simon

O’HERN, J.,

concurring in Parts I, II, and IV-XII and dissenting in Parts III and XIII.

I concur in the opinion of the Court except with respect to Part III, in which the Court concludes that the trial court was not clearly erroneous in rejecting defendant’s application to withdraw his guilty plea. By posing the wrong question, the Court has reached the wrong conclusion. The real question is whether the trial court should have accepted the plea in the first place.

I

Rule 3:9-2 imposes a non-delegable duty on a court accepting a guilty plea to satisfy itself independently “that there is a factual…