Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Judge SUDDOCK.

In 2008 James Marvin Lovett pled guilty to drug charges, but he absconded before his sentencing. By the time Lovett was arrested a year later, the assistant public defender who had represented him had transferred to another office within the Agency, and he was assigned a new public defender. Lovett told his new attorney that his previous attorney had told him to plead guilty because she was unprepared for trial and that he now wanted to withdraw his plea.

Lovett's new attorney spoke with the previous one, who contradicted Lovett's account. The new attorney then drafted a plea-withdrawal motion that did not repeat Lovett's assertion that his prior public defender had told him to plead guilty because she was unprepared for trial. Rather, the motion asserted a weaker claim: that Lovett pled guilty because his attorney did not have time to prepare him for trial.

Superior Court Judge Eric Smith denied the plea-withdrawal motion.

Lovett subsequently petitioned for post-conviction relief, claiming that because both of his attorneys were employed by the Public Defender Agency, the attorney who drafted his plea-withdrawal motion acted under a conflict of interest that prevented him from providing effective representation.

In his post-conviction relief litigation, Lovett was represented by an attorney working for the Office of Public Advocacy, and his case was assigned to Superior Court Judge Vanessa White. Judge White held an evidentiary hearing at which Lovett, his change-of-plea attorney, and his plea-withdrawal attorney all testified. During this hearing, Lovett's claims were accurately portrayed, and Lovett was able to testify in support of them, while Lovett's change-of-plea attorney gave testimony that rebutted Lovett's claims.

Based on the evidence presented at this hearing, Judge White concluded that Lovett's claims were false, and the judge therefore denied his petition for post-conviction relief. In particular, Judge White found that Lovett's change-of-plea attorney had not told him that she was unprepared for trial (except that she had not yet discussed with Lovett whether he planned to testify and what he intended to say).

In this appeal, Lovett again argues that the assistant public defender who drafted his plea-withdrawal motion acted under a conflict of interest that prevented the attorney from providing effective representation.

But even assuming this claim was supported by the record, Lovett would not be entitled to the remedy he seeks — withdrawal of his plea. He would instead be entitled to a de novo plea-withdrawal hearing at which he would be represented by conflict-free counsel. In other words, he would be entitled to the same evidentiary hearing afforded him by Judge White where she heard the evidence and found Lovett's claim of a coerced plea to be without merit.

Because Lovett received the post-conviction relief he would have been entitled to had the court granted his petition, he was not prejudiced by any failure of his plea-withdrawal attorney to represent him effectively.

We accordingly AFFIRM the judgment of the superior court.