Jack Charles Blankenship v. State

In this post-conviction appeal, we are asked once again to analyze what constitutes a "voluntary" and "intelligent" guilty plea under Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274, 89 S. Ct. 1709 (1969). It is a question most recently treated by this Court in State v. Neal, 810 S.W.2d 131 (Tenn. 1991), on which the Court of Criminal Appeals based its decision in this case, and in State v. Montgomery, 840 S.W.2d 900 (Tenn. 1992). Because the petitioner claims that the opinion in Neal is in conflict with dispositive federal law on this question, and because one member of the Court of Criminal Appeals panel that heard this case below agreed in Dissent, we granted discretionary review to clarify several points of relevant law.