Opinion ID: 2995169
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Availability of Federal Post-

Text: Conviction Relief Jackson claims that his 1975 theft conviction was obtained in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel; therefore, he claims that the use of that conviction to enhance his current sentence is unconstitutional. Because Jackson seeks to challenge his current sentence by attacking a fully expired conviction used to enhance that sentence, our first task is to determine whether federal post-conviction relief is available to a prisoner in Jackson’s situation. To that end, we asked the parties to consider the applicability of our decision in Smith v. Farley, 25 F.3d 1363 (7th Cir. 1994), in which we held that federal review of a fully expired conviction that has been incorporated into a new enhanced sentence is limited to situations in which the petitioner had no access to collateral review because state procedures were wholly absent, or . . . constitutionally deficient. Id. at 1370. Smith is no longer controlling on this issue, however, in light of two intervening Supreme Court decisions that address the availability of federal-post- conviction relief to petitioners who assert that an unconstitutional prior conviction was used to enhance their current sentence. See Daniels v. United States, 121 S. Ct. 1578 (2001) and Lackawanna County Dist. Att’y v. Coss, 121 S. Ct. 1567 (2001). We therefore direct our attention to those decisions. In Daniels and Lackawanna, the Supreme Court confirmed that, in general, habeas relief is not available to petitioners who challenge a fully expired conviction used to enhance a subsequent sentence in a petition brought under 28 U.S.C. sec. 2254 or sec. 2255. See Daniels, 121 S. Ct. at 1583; Lackawanna, 121 S. Ct. at 1570. The Supreme Court held that ’if . . . a prior conviction used to enhance a federal sentence is no longer open to direct or collateral attack in its own right because the defendant failed to pursue those remedies while they were available (or because the defendant did so unsuccessfully), then that defendant . . . may not collaterally attack his prior conviction’ through a motion under sec. 2254. Lackawanna, 121 S. Ct at 1573 (quoting Daniels, 121 S. Ct. at 1583). Recognizing the special status of Gideon claims, however, the Supreme Court carved out an exception to the general rule for cases in which the challenged conviction was allegedly obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Lackawanna, id. at 1574. The Supreme Court held that, if a petitioner satisfies the other procedural prerequisites for relief, he may challenge an enhanced sentence on the basis that the prior conviction used to enhance the sentence was obtained where there was a failure to appoint counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment, as set forth in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S. Ct. 792, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799 (1963). Id. at 1574; cf. Daniels, 121 S. Ct. at 1583. In recognizing this exception to the general rule, the Court acknowledged that the ’failure to appoint counsel for an indigent [is] a unique constitutional defect . . . ris[ing] to the level of a jurisdictional defect,’ which therefore warrants special treatment among alleged constitutional violations. Lackawanna, 121 S. Ct. 1574 (quoting Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 496, 114 S. Ct. 1732, 128 L. Ed. 2d 517 (1994)). Therefore, because Jackson alleges that his 1975 theft conviction was obtained in violation of his right to counsel, we will review his petition to determine if habeas relief is appropriate.