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Tyler v. State9/14/2001
No 1763
On May 18, 2001, this court ordered attorney Eugene B. Cyrus to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed on him under Appellate Rule 510(c) for his conduct in this appeal. Having considered Mr. Cyrus's response, we conclude that Mr. Cyrus should be fined under Appellate Rule 510(c). In his opening brief, Mr. Cyrus misstated the facts of the case in a way that masked this court's potential lack of jurisdiction to entertain the appeal. Then, after the true facts were revealed and the jurisdictional problem became known, Mr. Cyrus knowingly failed to cite a decision of the Alaska Supreme Court that was directly adverse to his contention that this court had jurisdiction to decide the appeal.
Procedural history of Tyler v. State
To explain our decision, we need to describe the procedural history of the underlying appeal: Tyler v. State, File No. A-7779.
David A. Tyler was convicted of felony DWI - driving while intoxicated after having been twice previously convicted of DWI within the preceding five years. Tyler, represented by Mr. Cyrus, appealed his conviction to this court.
In his brief to this court, Mr. Cyrus conceded that Tyler was guilty of driving while intoxicated on the date alleged in the indictment, but he asserted that Tyler's two prior DWI convictions were invalid because, in both prior cases, Tyler had not knowingly waived his right to counsel before he pleaded no contest to the charges. Mr. Cyrus therefore argued that Tyler's prior convictions should be set aside and that Tyler's current DWI offense should be reduced to a misdemeanor.
Mr. Cyrus stated in his brief that Tyler was entitled to litigate this issue because he had gone to trial and had been convicted. But when the State's attorney reviewed the record in preparation for writing the appellee's brief, he discovered that Tyler had not gone to trial. Rather, Tyler had been convicted of felony DWI after convincing the superior court to let him enter a Cooksey plea over the objection of the prosecutor. Under the terms of this Cooksey plea, Tyler purportedly reserved the right to litigate the validity of his pleas to the two prior DWI charges.
Based on this discovery, the State moved to dismiss Tyler's appeal. The State argued that Tyler's Cooksey plea was invalid because the issue that Tyler had preserved for appeal - the validity of his two prior DWI pleas - was not dispositive of Tyler's case.
The State pointed out that even if we ultimately concluded that Tyler had not knowingly waived his right to counsel before he pleaded no contest to the two prior charges, this would not mean that Tyler was entitled to an acquittal of the prior charges. Rather, Tyler would be entitled to withdraw his no contest pleas - but the charges would still stand, and Tyler would face trial on those charges. The State argued that if Tyler was again convicted of these charges (either following trial or after entering counseled pleas of no contest), then Tyler would still be a third offender for purposes of his current offense, and thus Tyler's felony DWI conviction would remain valid.
In his response, Mr. Cyrus conceded that he had incorrectly stated the facts in his brief: Tyler had not gone to trial, but rather had entered a Cooksey plea. Mr. Cyrus further conceded that Tyler's Cooksey plea would be invalid if the State's legal argument was correct - i.e., if the State was correct in arguing that Tyler would remain a third offender if he was ultimately re-convicted on the two prior DWI charges. But Mr. Cyrus contended "that the present state of the law does not permit such a relation back." He argued that even if Tyler was ag
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