Opinion ID: 1677220
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: application of the prior jurisprudence to the facts

Text: At the habitual offender hearing, defendant's attorney objected to the evidence the State introduced to prove the prior conviction; therefore, the burden of proof was on the State to demonstrate an affirmative showing in the record that the accused at the time he entered his guilty plea knowingly and voluntarily waived his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, right to trial by jury, and right to confront his accusers. Tucker, 405 So.2d at 509. In this case, the State submitted a minute entry which stated the judge gave the Defendant his rights. Also introduced was a Waiver of Constitutional Rights/Plea of Guilty Form. The form listed several rights, including the right to trial by jury, the privilege against self-incrimination, and the right to confront accusers. After each right listed were the defendant's initials, indicating a waiver of those rights. The form also stated: I understand all of the legal consequences of pleading guilty and wish to plead guilty at this time because I am in fact guilty of this crime, which statement was initialled by the defendant. Most importantly, the form stated the following: The court has addressed me personally as to all of these matters and he has given me the opportunity to make any statement I desire. The form was initialled several times by the defendant and was signed by the defendant, his attorney, and the trial judge. We conclude, consistent with Tucker and Santiago, that the State introduced evidence sufficient to meet its burden of making an affirmative showing that the guilty plea was informed, free and voluntary, and made with an articulated waiver of the three Boykin rights. La.R.S. 15:529.1 merely requires proof of a prior felony conviction. In Lewis, however, in order to ensure that our application of Boykin to an habitual offender proceeding would not result in the subsequent reversal of convictions by the United States Supreme Court for non-compliance with Boykin, we held due process required us to place on the State the burden of proving adequate Boykinization of a prior guilty plea sought to be used in a later habitual offender proceeding. The United States Supreme Court has recently stated, however, Boykin does not require such, and, indeed, the presumption of regularity that attaches to final judgments makes it appropriate to assign a proof burden to the defendant  when the defendant has collaterally attacked a final conviction on constitutional grounds. [20]