Ibanez

This is an appeal by the Riverside County District Attorney (the People) from the trial court’s order granting defendant Vincent Ibanez (defendant) a writ of coram nobis to vacate judgment and withdraw his plea of guilty. 1 As explained below, we will reverse the trial court’s ruling on the grounds a writ of error coram nobis cannot be used to correct a legal error, and because the trial court abused its discretion in granting defendant’s motion to withdraw his plea.

I

Factual and Procedural Background

On April 21, 1998, the People filed a felony complaint against defendant, charging him with six counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under the *541 age of fourteen (Pen. Code, § 288, subd. (a) 2 ) (counts I, HI-VII) and one count of continuous child molestation (§ 288.5) (count II).

On August 26, 1998, prior to the preliminary hearing, defendant, who was then represented by Anthony Contreras, entered an open plea to all counts on the basis of the trial court’s sentence of eight years. At that time, the trial court went over the Tahl form (In re Tahl (1969) 1 Cal.3d 122 [ 81 Cal.Rptr. 577 , 460 P.2d 449 ]) with defendant, found his plea to be knowing and…