Court upholds meth conviction

SANDPOINT — The Idaho Court of Appeals is rejecting a Bonner County man’s claim that he was unaware he faced a mandatory-minimum prison sentence when he pleaded guilty to cooking methamphetamine.

Brandon Neil Crump was arrested for drug trafficking after sheriff’s officials raided his home in Vay in 2011. Crump was also charged with felony child endangerment because the crude drug lab was accessible by children in his home.

In exchange for a plea of guilt, the prosecution agreed to slightly amend the drug charge to trafficking via attempted manufacturing and abandon the injury-to-child charge.

After entering a guilty plea, Crump sought to withdraw it, claiming he was unaware that he signed on to an agreement which guaranteed he would have to serve at least two years of a 15-year sentence.

First District Judge Steve Verby denied Crump’s motion to withdraw his plea, noting that Crump had previously testified that he was aware of the fixed, minimum term in his case.

“I could go ahead and simply state at this point that he did know what he was getting into when he entered the plea of guilty,” Verby said during the hearing.

Crump appealed his conviction, arguing that the court’s basis for denying the plea-withdrawal motion was not supported by substantial and competent evidence.

But appellate Judge John Melanson rejected Crump’s argument by pointing to testimony at two hearings in which Crump stated that he understood he faced a fixed minimum term.

“This review of the record demonstrates the district court’s factual finding that Crump understood his guilty plea would expose him to a mandatory minimum sentence of two years is supported by substantial and competent evidence,” Melanson wrote in an unpublished opinion released by the court on Monday.

Chief Judge Sergio Gutierrez and Karen Lansing concurred.

Crump, 35, is serving his sentence at the Idaho Correctional Institution in Orofino, according to the Idaho Department of Correction. His parole eligibility date is Jan. 27, 2014 and his last parole activity was in April of last year.