Opinion ID: 849000
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Tollett v. Henderson

Text: The majority's reliance on Tollett v. Henderson [2] to fortify its position is misplaced. Tollett, which held that a defendant may not assert a constitutional error that occurred before his counseled guilty plea, involved a direct challenge to a plea. It did not involve a collateral challenge. More importantly, its discussion of the significance of guilty pleas is unmistakedly limited to pleas entered with the advice of counsel. Tollett does not stand for the proposition that a guilty plea waives a challenge to the validity of an earlier conviction when the challenge is based on denial of the right to counsel. See Menna v. New York, 423 U.S. 61, 62-63, n. 2, 96 S.Ct. 241, 46 L.Ed.2d 195 (1975). Here the conviction was based in part on a void conviction or convictions. Tollett does not address that situation. It certainly does not hold that a void conviction can be resuscitated by a counseled guilty plea in a later case. As we discussed in People v. New, [3] the United States Supreme Court clarified the holding of Tollett, saying that a counseled guilty plea renders irrelevant those constitutional violations not logically inconsistent with the valid establishment of guilt and which do not stand in the way of conviction, if factual guilt is validly established.  [ New, supra at 488, 398 N.W.2d 358 quoting Menna, supra (emphasis added).] In this case, defendant's conviction of OUIL-3d depends on prior OUIL convictions, one or more of which were obtained in violation of the right to counsel. As further analysis reveals, no precedent exists that sustains the majority's implicit decision that defendant's factual guilt of his prior counselless convictions was validly established. Tollett does not extend to collateral challenges of underlying void convictions and is inapplicable.