Motion to withdraw a guilty plea; Alleged failure to comply with MCR 6.445(F); Principle that a defendant must file a motion to withdraw his or her guilty plea in the trial court or he or she is barred from raising the issue on appeal; MCR 6.310(D); People v. Armisted; People v. Pointer-Bey; Sentencing; Departure sentence; Proportionality; People v. Smith; People v. Dixon-Bey

Holding that the trial court erred by relying on uncharged and unverified conduct, which affected defendant’s substantial rights because it led to the revocation of his probation and the imposition of a significantly longer sentence, the court reversed the revocation and remanded for determination of whether, “only on the basis of charged and verified conduct, probation revocation is warranted.” He pled guilty to two counts of unarmed robbery and was sentenced to 270 days’ confinement in the county jail and 3 years’ probation for each conviction. He later pled guilty to violating his probation while in jail, which led to the revocation of his probation and a sentence of 36 to 180 months in prison. On appeal, the court rejected his argument that his guilty plea for the probation violation must be vacated because the trial court failed to comply with MCR 6.445(F), noting he was barred from raising this argument under MCR 6.310(D). Because he “never filed a motion to withdraw his pleas in the trial court,” the court was precluded from reviewing the issue. However, it agreed with his claim that the trial court violated his due-process rights by relying on conduct that was not charged in the motions and affidavits for the probation violations in deciding to revoke his probation. “The only conduct that the trial court was permitted to consider was defendant’s altercation with [the second victim], which was the conduct to which [he] pleaded guilty as a violation of his probation.” However, the record indicated "that the trial court considered far more than the altercation . . . —defendant’s rule breaking, removal from an educational class, and obstruction of an officer’s duty—to revoke probation.” Finally, the court noted that, “[a]fter consideration of only the appropriate evidence, should the trial court find that a probation revocation and an upward departure sentence are still warranted, [it] should make sure to develop the record so that [the court] can properly determine whether the chosen sentence is reasonable and proportionate to the offense and the offender.”