Opinion ID: 2233481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: old-fashioned dirty pool

Text: I now address what I consider to be the most important reason for my refusal to join in affirming the trial court's decision. I call it dirty pool on the part of the State and would estop the State from staining the criminal jurisprudence in our courts of this state. Without quoting the entire text of the colloquy between the court and the appellant in his September 6, 1979 Stanley County conviction, suffice it to say that the court advised appellant of his rights including this statement: [A]nd if you are convicted three times within a four year period of driving while intoxicated, the offense then becomes a felony and the maximum penalty is two years in the State Penitentiary.... In Hughes County on July 7, 1982, the court, once again while advising appellant of his rights, expressed: Mr. Nilson, I want to tell you also that if you are convicted three times in a four year period for this offense, it then becomes a felony and the maximum penalty then is two years.... In both instances, appellant entered a plea of guilty. It becomes very obvious that the trial court was extremely careful in advising appellant of the four-year enhancement statute prior to accepting appellant's two pleas of guilty to the two prior D.W.I. charges. At the time of the sentence of the second D.W.I., in addition to those remarks which I have cast in quotes above, the trial court clearly recognized that it was acting under the four-year statute. For, after receiving appellant's guilty plea, the trial court stated: Mr. Nilson, I think you were here when I talked to the other individual that had been sentenced priorpreviously for DWI and I justyou have got to know that the next time you get convicted of this if it is within the next year, that I am going to send you to the Penitentiary for two years.... (Emphasis supplied.) I take the position that any defendant in a criminal case has the right to rely upon the statements of His Honor when he is in that tender moment of deciding to enter a plea of guilty or not. His Honor is elevated on a bench and represents the last word of Legal Authority. His Honor is the epitome of the law to the defendant and he has every right in the world to believe that what His Honor tells him is the Gospel, so far as the Law is concerned. In this case, I find this to be hypercrucial for the defendant (now appellant here) was unrepresented by counsel. Therefore, we have a situation where a man is unrepresented by counsel and is clearly told by the trial judge as to the law which applies to him. Now, he will be told by no less than the highest Court of this state that when he entered his two pleas, His Honor was really not telling him the law and that he really could not believe what His Honor told him. From the wellspring of my sense of fairness, I cannot countenance the blessing of such a procedure as this. It violates all sense of fair play. In State v. Olesen, 331 N.W.2d 75, 77 (S.D.1983), this Court held that it was not necessary that the court, prior to accepting a guilty plea, inform the defendant that he may be subject to enhanced punishment if he commits another crime. The two first offenses here were pre- Olesen and the trial court in the Sixth Judicial Circuit was apparently acting in an abundance of caution. However, once the trial court undertook to advise the defendant of the punishment, and the defendant then acted upon the advice and information of the trial judge, the defendant had every right in the world to rely upon that information and advice in entering his plea. Are we to construe that the trial court's advice was pre- Olesen and simply incorrect or a slip of the tongue? Or do we probe more deeply and reflect that the judge was then and there canvassing the matter with the accused and was making sure that the accused's plea was free and intelligent before the accused entered his plea? Accused in the first two cases, now appellant here, was entitled to know the nature and consequences of his plea. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969); Spirit Track v. State, 272 N.W.2d 803 (S.D.1978); Nachtigall v. Erickson, 85 S.D. 122, 178 N.W.2d 198 (1970).