Thomas v. Commonwealth

Syllabus

05/30/2024 In a criminal case begun with a charge of aggravated malicious wounding of the victim with a razor-knife, desiring to dispose of the case expeditiously as an uncontested matter due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the parties agreed to a new plea agreement in early May of 2020 after their first plea agreement, reached in January of 2020, was neither accepted nor rejected by the trial court. When the trial court became aware of the second plea agreement, which had been accepted by a judge designate, the original trial court judge demanded that the first plea agreement be enforced, despite the parties having withdrawn their assent to that agreement and the original trial court judge having neither accepted nor rejected that agreement. The trial court's insistence upon and eventual implementation of a plea agreement that the parties had revoked was reversible error because parties are free to modify or renegotiate a plea agreement when a court has not yet accepted the agreement. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court. Therefore, the judgment of conviction is vacated, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. The case is remanded to the Court of Appeals with direction to remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion, and upon remand, the parties will be returned to the status quo ante: an indictment for aggravated malicious wounding.