State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A17-1641

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Erica Marie Ruiz,
Appellant.

Filed September 24, 2018
Affirmed
Smith, Tracy M., Judge

Ramsey County District Court
File No. 62-CR-16-6108

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

John Choi, Ramsey County At torney, Thomas R. Ragatz, Assistant County Attorney,
St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Veronica M. Surges, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Kirk, Pr esiding Judge; Reilly, Judge; and Smith,
Tracy M., Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
SMITH, TRACY M., Judge
Appellant Erica Ruiz appeals the denial of her presentence motion to withdraw her
plea, arguing (1) that it was fair and just to permit withdrawal because she was innocent

2
and felt pressured by her attorney to plead guilty and (2) that withdrawal was required
because her plea was not intelligent. We affirm.
FACTS
In late August 2016, Ruiz was charged with one count of felony threats of violence
and one count of gross-misdem eanor stalking. On February 28, 2017, Ruiz entered an
Alford plea1 to gross-misdemeanor stalking in exch ange for dismissal of the threats-of-
violence charge and a recommendation for a stay of execution of the sentence for stalking,
with no additional jail time.
Before sentencing, Ruiz filed a motion to withdraw her plea. A hearing was held
on July 20. The district court denied her mo tion to withdraw, conclu ding that allowing
Ruiz to withdraw her plea was not fair and just and that she had entered her plea
“voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently.” At sentencing, per her attorney’s request and
without objection by the state, the district court agreed to stay the imposition (rather than
stay the execution) of Ruiz’s sentence so that she would have the opportunity to reduce her
conviction from a gross misdemeanor to a misdemeanor if she complied with the conditions
of probation.
Ruiz appeals the denial of her plea-withdrawal motion.

1 An Alford plea allows a defendant to plead guilty while maintaining innocence of the
charged offense because there is sufficient evidence for a jury to find the defendant guilty
at trial. State v. Goulette, 258 N.W.2d 758, 760 (Minn. 1977) (discussing North Carolina
v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 37, 91 S. Ct. 160, 167 (1970)).

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D E C I S I O N
I. The district court did not abuse its di scretion in denying Ruiz’s motion to
withdraw her plea under the fair-and-just standard.
A district court has discretion to allow a defendant to withdr aw a plea before
sentencing “if it is fair and just to do so.” Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 2. In applying
the fair-and-just standard, the district court must consider the defendant’s reasons as to why
the defendant should be allowed to withdraw his or her plea and balance those reasons
against any prejudice the state would suffer. Id. The defendant has the burden to show
why plea withdrawal is appropriate. State v. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d 90, 97 (Minn. 2010).
Ruiz argues that plea withdrawal would have been fair and just because she is
innocent of the charges and she pleaded guilty only because she felt forced to do so by her
attorney, who she believes was providing inadequate representation. The decision whether
to permit withdrawal under the fair-and-just standard is within a district court’s discretion
and “will be reversed only in the rare case in which the appellate court can fairly conclude
that the [district] court abused its discretion.” State v. Kaiser, 469 N.W.2d 316, 320 (Minn.
1991) (quotation omitted). We conclude that this is not one of those rare cases.
In deciding that Ruiz was not pressured by her attorney into pleading guilty, the
district court relied on her sworn statements and signed pl ea petition, as well as its own
observations as to the signifi cant amount of time Ruiz spen t discussing her plea with her
attorney off the record during the plea heari ng. After meeting with counsel and listening
to the state’s offer of proof, Ruiz testified th at she had sufficient time to discuss the offer
and was freely choosing to plead guilty because she believed there was sufficient evidence

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to support a guilty verdict. The district court chose to credit Ruiz’s sworn statements, and
we defer to this credibility determination. See State v. Aviles-Alvarez, 561 N.W.2d 523,
527 (Minn. App. 1997), review denied (Minn. Jun. 11, 1997). As for Ruiz’s argument that
she is innocent of the charges, this assertion is fully consistent with her Alford plea and so
cannot provide a reasonable basis for its withdrawal. See Goulette, 258 N.W.2d at 761
(explaining that, under an Alford plea, a defendant maintains his or her innocence). The
district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to allow Ruiz to withdraw her plea
under the fair-and-just standard.
II. There is no manifest injust ice requiring plea withdrawal.

A district court must allow a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea if it is necessary
to correct a “manifest injustice. ” Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1. A manifest injustice
exists when a plea is not cons titutionally valid, meaning that it is not accurate, voluntary,
or intelligent. Raleigh, 778 N.W.2d at 94. For a plea to be intelligent, a defendant must
understand “the charges against [her], the rights [s]he is waiving, and the consequences of
[her] plea.” Id. at 96. The validity of a plea is a question of law that appellate courts review
de novo. Id. at 94.
Ruiz argues that there are two issues that rendered her plea unintelligent: (1) it was
unclear to her what the terms of the plea ag reement were; and (2) she was unaware of the
potential consequences of her guilty plea, specifically, that she would receive two years of
probation.
The record indicates that Ruiz was made aware of the terms of the plea agreement
at the plea hearing by both the state and her attorney, and she agreed to those terms in the

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signed plea petition. At the beginning of the plea hearing, the state explained that its offer
was for Ruiz to enter an Alford plea to “either count as a gr oss misdemeanor, with a stay
of execution, no additional jail time requested by the state.” The consequences of the plea
were also articulated within the plea petition that Ruiz signe d, which stated that “the
maximum penalty that the court could impose” for the crime is imprisonment for one year.
And, before her plea was accepted, Ruiz testified that her attorney fully explained the “joint
recommendation” and that she understood the terms and conditions.
Ruiz’s reliance on State v. DeZeler , 427 N.W.2d 231 (Minn. 1988) is misplaced.
While the defendant in DeZeler was mistakenly told he woul d receive a lesser sentence
based on his criminal history score, see DeZeler , 427 N.W.2d at 235, Ruiz was not
misinformed of her sentence and did not, in fact, receiv e any additional jail time in
accordance with her plea agreement. There was no promise in the state’s offer regarding
probation, either when it was made on the record or in what was noted on the plea petition.
At sentencing, Ruiz’s attorney successfully requested a stay of imposition instead of a stay
of execution, which requires successful co mpletion of the terms of the stay. See Minn.
Sent. Guidelines 1.B.19 (2015). And, notab ly, when the district court explained at
sentencing what a stay of imposition entailed, Ruiz did not object to probation or claim
surprise at the conditions.
Because we conclude that Ru iz intelligently entered her plea, there is no manifest
injustice requiring plea withdrawal.
Affirmed.