HUTCHINSON, Kan. – A Hutchinson woman’s effort to get relief from a 25-year to life sentence for the murder of her mother has failed again.
The Kansas Supreme Court, in a published opinion Wednesday, denied the request for 34-year-old Tracie Miles to withdraw her plea. Two years ago, Judge Trish Rose denied the motion of Miles saying, “the defendant has not satisfied her burden of showing manifest injustice and the motion to withdraw the plea is denied.” That is pretty much what the high court stated in its opinion as well.
The appeal started after now deceased Judge Richard Rome ruled he had no jurisdiction to hear arguments in the effort of Miles to withdraw her no contest pleas in the 1998 death of her mother.
In her motion, she alleges she didn’t understand what she was doing when she entered the pleas. She says her lawyer at the time, Tim Frieden, scared her by telling her if she didn’t take the plea, she could get the death penalty or a “Hard 40” sentence. But, District Attorney Keith Schroeder argued at the time she was told of her rights and even signed an advice of rights form.
The Supreme Court ruled that, even if her attorney had previously misinformed or failed to fully inform Miles of the charges and possible penalties, any prejudice from that error was eliminated by the judge’s thoroughness at the plea hearing.
Miles was 17 when she and her 19-year-old boyfriend, Paul Nelson, were arrested for the murder of Miles’ mother, Sandra Kay Miles. Her body was found March 30, 1998, in her Hutchinson home. She had been struck with a wooden bear statue, then strangled. The two pleaded no contest to intentional first-degree murder, aggravated robbery and forgery, and received 25 to life sentences in 1999.