FIRST DIVISION ELLINGTON, C. J., PHIPPS, P. J., and DILLARD, J.

NOTICE: Motions for reconsideration must be physically received in our clerk’s office within ten days of the date of decision to be deemed timely filed. (Court of Appeals Rule 4 (b) and Rule 37 (b), February 21, 2008) http://www.gaappeals.us/rules/

May 21, 2012

In the Court of Appeals of Georgia A12A0031. ADAMS v. THE STATE. P HIPPS, Presiding Judge. While represented by counsel, Allen Adams entered a negotiated guilty plea to possession of cocaine. In February 2007, the trial court entered a judgment of conviction and sentence on the plea. Adams subsequently filed motions to withdraw the guilty plea and to vacate the judgment. Adams, acting pro se, appeals from the orders denying those motions. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. ^[1]. Adams contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to withdraw the guilty plea because the plea was not voluntarily entered. He asserts that the plea was not voluntary because he has a “mental disorder,” and that he should have received a mental evaluation before he was allowed to enter the plea, despite not having requested such an evaluation. His argument presents no basis for reversal. Once a defendant challenges the validity of a guilty plea, the state bears the burden of showing that the plea was entered voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently; that is, that the defendant was cognizant of all of the rights he was waiving and the possible consequences of his plea. . . . In ruling on a motion to withdraw a guilty plea, the trial court is the final arbiter of all factual issues raised by the evidence, and after sentence is pronounced a guilty plea may be withdrawn only to correct a manifest injustice. Moreover, a ruling on a motion to withdraw a guilty plea after sentencing is within the sound discretion of the trial court, and that discretion will not be disturbed on appeal unless it has been manifestly abused.^[1] First, the issue of whether Adams’s guilty plea was voluntary has already been decided against him. Adams previously filed an appeal from the denial of his motion to modify the sentence.^[2] In that appeal, Adams asserted errors regarding the propriety of a revocation order, the court’s failure to apply the rule of lenity, and other provisions of his sentence.^[3] We rejected Adams’s contentions, holding inter alia that he waived his right to challenge the conditions of his sentence because he had agreed to the sentence as part of a negotiated plea and the plea hearing transcript showed that his guilty plea was “freely and voluntarily entered into with a full and complete understanding and waiver of his rights.” 4 Adams is precluded from relitigating the issue of whether his plea was freely and voluntarily entered.^[5]

Second, even if the prior ruling did not preclude consideration of the voluntariness issue raised in this appeal, because Adams did not raise in the trial court the issue of his mental competence to enter a plea, he is precluded from raising it in this appeal. ^[6] Finally, we note that in a case in which a defendant seeks to plead guilty, “[a]s in any criminal case, a competency determination is necessary only when a court has reason to doubt the defendant’s competence.” 7 The focus of a competency inquiry is the defendant’s mental capacity; the question is whether he has the ability to understand the proceedings. ^[8] A trial court “bears the constitutional duty to inquire into a defendant’s [mental] competency where it appears to be in question at the time of trial.” 9 There is no indication in the record that the court had any reason to doubt Adams’s mental competency and to thus order a mental evaluation.^[10] The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Adams’s motion to withdraw the guilty plea.^[11]

2. Adams contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to vacate the judgment. Although his argument is difficult to comprehend, Adams seems to assert that the judgment should have been vacated because he was denied credit for time served and because a condition of his probation was illegal (apparently the condition banishing him from Putnam County).

Adams’s argument that he did not receive credit for time served is not properly before us. The duty to award credit for time served prior to trial is upon the Department of Corrections rather than the trial court. ^[12] Adams’s claim regarding the calculation of credit is cognizable only in a mandamus or injunction action against the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections 13 or in a petition for habeas corpus.^[14] “The only time we consider such arguments in a direct appeal from the original conviction is where the trial court in its written sentencing order gives gratuitous misdirection to the correctional custodians.” 15 In such a case, we remand the case for the trial court to strike the offending language from the order.^[16] But inasmuch as the sentencing order in this case gives no such direction, remand is not required.^[17]

This court rejected Adams’s challenge to the banishment condition of his probation in the earlier appeal because, inter alia, he had agreed to the sentence as part of a negotiated plea agreement. ^[18] Our ruling in the prior appeal is binding.^[19]

Judgment affirmed. Ellington, C. J., and Dillard, J., concur.