Successive motion for relief from judgment; MCR 6.502(G)(1) & (2)

The court reversed the order granting defendant’s successive motion for relief from judgment and remanded to the trial court for the limited purpose of reinstating his 2007 guilty plea and conviction to one count of accessory after the fact to the murder of victim-H. The prosecution contended that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing him to withdraw his plea. Specifically, it contended that defendant was procedurally barred from filing a second motion for relief from judgment. The court agreed. The trial court found that his 2019 motion for relief from judgment was a successive motion. Once it made that determination, it “was required to determine whether defendant met the initial threshold requirement for review under MCR 6.502(G)(2).” Specifically, it had “to determine whether the motion properly identified a retroactive change in the law or presented a claim of new evidence. If defendant failed to fulfill one of those exceptions to the general prohibition against successive motions for relief from judgment, the trial court was required to return the successive motion to defendant without filing.” The trial court found that his “successive motion did not properly identify a retroactive change in law or present a claim of new evidence that was not discovered before his motion filed in 2014.” Because of this, it was required to return without filing his successive motion. Instead, it analyzed his successive motion under MCR 6.508(D)(3). Defendant failed to meet either exception under MCR 6.502(G)(2) and thus, the trial court abused its discretion by granting his successive motion for relief from judgment. As a result, the issue whether he required an interpreter at the time of his plea hearing was moot. Nevertheless, the court reviewed the transcript of his 2007 plea. The record reflected that he “had command of the English language during his plea hearing, specifically when responding to questions posed by the trial court and explaining in detail what he did as an accessory to the murder of” H. Thus, the court was not convinced that he “lacked a clear understanding of his plea at the time it was made under oath to the trial court.”