People v. Aragon

In People v. Aragon (1992) 11 Cal.App.4th 749, a defendant pleaded guilty to possessing phencyclidine in exchange for the dismissal of charges of selling phencyclidine and possessing cocaine. (Id. at p. 754.) After serving his sentence, Aragon moved to withdraw his guilty plea on the ground that he had not been advised that conviction could subject him to deportation. (Ibid.) The trial court granted the motion, vacated the conviction, and reinstated the dismissed counts. (Ibid.) Aragon then pleaded guilty to the cocaine charge and was acquitted of the charge of selling phencyclidine. (Id. at pp. 754-755.) The trial court imposed a sentence greater than the sentence Aragon had received previously when he pleaded guilty. (Id. at p. 756.) Aragon claimed that when he was tried after repudiating his prior guilty plea, the prior sentence operated as a limit on the sentence that could be imposed. (Aragon, supra, 11 Cal.App.4th at pp. 759-760.) The court rejected this position: "Defendant flatly repudiated his bargain by withdrawing his guilty plea. He thereby intentionally relinquished the protection of the original plea bargain, consenting instead to set the matter at large. The principles of Collins, supra, 21 Cal.3d 208 (applying Henderson limit to sentencing on retrial after the conduct on which first conviction had been based was decriminalized) did not preclude the imposition of a sentence more harsh than that originally imposed." (Aragon, at p. 760.)