Court Opinion

ID: 9427891
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:11.677156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:10.362692
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stevens join,
concurring.
The Sixth Amendment provides: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the As*225sistance of Counsel for his defence.” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 342 (1963), held that the appointment of counsel for an indigent criminal defendant is “fundamental and essential to a fair trial.” Therefore, the guarantee of counsel was made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Gideon, of course, involved a felony prosecution, but nothing in the opinion suggests that its reasoning was not, like the words of the Sixth Amendment itself, applicable to “all criminal prosecutions.” In Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25, 37 (1972), we rejected the suggestion that the right to counsel applied only to nonpetty offenses where the accused had a right to a jury trial, and held that “no person may be imprisoned for any offense . . . unless he was represented by counsel at his trial.”
Seven years later, in Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367 (1979), we considered a question expressly reserved in Argersinger, whether counsel must be provided if imprisonment was an authorized punishment but had not actually been imposed. See Argersinger v. Hamlin, supra, at 37. The Court “conclude [d] . . . that Argersinger did indeed delimit the constitutional right to appointed counsel in state criminal proceedings” and “adopt[ed] . . . actual imprisonment as the line defining the constitutional right to appointment of counsel.” Scott v. Illinois, supra, at 373. For the reasons stated in Mr. Justice Brennan’s dissenting opinion in Scott, I remain convinced that that case was wrongly decided. Nevertheless, even if one accepts the line drawn in Scott as the constitutional rule applicable to this case, I think it plain *226that petitioner’s prior uncounseled misdemeanor conviction could not be used collaterally to impose an increased term of imprisonment upon a subsequent conviction.
The court below held that petitioner’s earlier conviction for shoplifting three packages of bacon was constitutionally valid under Scott since he received only a fine and probation, and therefore it could be used to elevate his subsequent conviction from a misdemeanor to a felony and to permit him to be sentenced to three years in prison rather than the one year maximum otherwise applicable. This logic is fallacious for the simple reason that petitioner’s prior conviction was not valid for all purposes. Specifically, under the rule of Scott and Argersinger, it was invalid for the purpose of depriving petitioner of his liberty.
Scott, of course, did not purport to modify or restrict Argersinger. The question in Scott was simply one of “the proper application of our decision” in Argersinger. Scott v. Illinois, supra, at 368. The Court concluded that the precise holding in Argersinger, that counsel was required because Argersinger had been imprisoned as a result of the prosecution, expressed the limit of the right to counsel. Accordingly, the Court declined to extend Argersinger to all cases in which imprisonment was an authorized penalty. In the Court’s view, Argersinger rested primarily on the conclusion “that incarceration was so severe a sanction that it should not be imposed as a result of a criminal trial unless an indigent defendant had been offered appointed counsel to assist in his defense,” 440 U. S., at 372-373.
That petitioner has been deprived of his liberty “as a result of [the first] criminal trial” could not be clearer. If it had not been for the prior conviction, petitioner could not have been sentenced to more than one year for the present offense.1 *227Solely because of the previous conviction the second offense was transformed from a misdemeanor into a felony, with all the serious collateral consequences that a felony conviction entails, and he received a sentence that may result in imprisonment for two years in excess of that 1-year maximum.
Mr. Justice Powell’s dissenting opinion, post, at 232, asserts that this result is constitutionally permissible because under the enhancement statute the increased punishment was imposed for the second offense rather than the first. I agree that the increased prison sentence in this case is not an enlargement of the sentence for the original offense. If it were, this would be a double jeopardy case. But under the recidivist clause of the Illinois statute, if the State proves a prior conviction for the same offense a completely different range of sentencing options, including a substantially longer term of imprisonment, becomes available. The sentence petitioner actually received would not have been authorized by statute but for the previous conviction. It was imposed as a direct consequence of that uncounseled conviction and is therefore forbidden under Scott and Argersinger.
We should not lose sight of the underlying rationale of Argersinger, that unless an accused has “the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him,” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 69 (1932), his conviction is not sufficiently reliable to support the severe sanction of imprisonment. Argersinger v. Hamlin, supra, at 31-36.2 An uncoun-*228seled conviction does not become more reliable merely because the accused has been validly convicted of a subsequent offense. For this reason, a conviction which is invalid for purposes of imposing a sentence of imprisonment for the offense itself remains invalid for purposes of increasing a term of imprisonment for a subsequent conviction under a repeat-offender statute. It is therefore incorrect to say that our decision today creates a “new hybrid” of misdemeanor convictions. Post, at 232 (Powell, J., dissenting). To the contrary, a rule that held a conviction invalid for imposing a prison term directly, but valid for imposing a prison term *229collaterally, would be an illogical and unworkable deviation from our previous cases.3

 The fact that petitioner could be sentenced to some period of incarceration as a result of his second conviction does not, of course, prevent *227him from objecting to a further deprivation of liberty on the basis of an uncounseled conviction.

 I cannot agree with Mr. Justice Powell’s unsupported assertion, post, at 233-234, n. 2, that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is more likely to be reliable than an uncounseled felony conviction. I had thought that suggestion was squarely rejected in Argersinger. Mr. Justice Douglas’ opinion for the Court emphasized the need for the assistance of counsel to assure reliability of misdemeanor convictions: “We are by no means convinced that legal and constitutional questions involved in a case *228that actually leads to imprisonment even for a brief period are any less complex than when a person can be sent off for six months or more.” Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S., at 33. The Chief Justice concurred in the result, stating: “The issues that must be dealt with in a trial for a petty offense or a misdemeanor may often be simpler ■ than those involved in a felony trial and yet be beyond the capability of a layman. . . . There is little ground, therefore, to assume that a defendant, unaided by counsel, will be any more able adequately to defend himself against the lesser charges that may involve confinement than more serious charges.” Id., at 41. Mr. Justice Powell observed: “Many petty offenses will also present complex legal and factual issues that may not be fairly tried if the defendant is not assisted by counsel. Even in relatively simple cases, some defendants, because of ignorance or some other handicap, will be incapable of defending themselves.” Id., at 47 (opinion concurring in result).
In fact, as the opinion for the Court recognized, misdemeanor convictions may actually be less reliable than felony convictions. “[T]he volume of misdemeanor cases . . . may create an obsession for speedy dispositions, regardless of the fairness of the result. . . . ‘The misdemeanor trial is characterized by insufficient and frequently irresponsible preparation on the part of the defense, the prosecution, and the court. Everything is rush, rush.’ . . . There is evidence of the prejudice which results to misdemeanor defendants from this ‘assembly-line justice.’ ” Id., at 34r-36 (footnote and citations omitted). Moreover, if the ease is tried to a jury, as was petitioner’s first conviction, it is entirely possible that jurors may be less scrupulous about applying the reasonable-doubt standard if the offense charged is “only a misdemeanor.”

 The dissent expresses concern that our decision will impose unacceptable economic burdens on state and local governments. Post, at 235. I do not share that view. Not all misdemeanor defendants, of course, are indigent. See Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, 385, and n. 16 (1979) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Where the defendant is indigent, counsel will be provided in the first trial unless the prosecution does not seek a jail term. A great many States provide counsel in all cases where imprisonment is authorized, even though counsel is not constitutionally required. See id., at 386-387, n. 18. Further, not all subsequent offenses are subject to enhancement, and not all previous offenses are predicate offenses for enhancement purposes. Thus the number of cases in which the State must decide whether to provide counsel solely to preserve its ability to enhance a subsequent offense will be only a fraction of the total. In many of those remaining eases, the judgment whether future misconduct is likely, and whether the first offense is serious enough to warrant its use for enhancement, will be a relatively easy exercise of prosecutorial discretion.
The economic effect of our decision today will be miniscule compared to that of Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932), Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), and Argersinger v. Hamlin, supra. But whatever that cost may be, it cannot outweigh the Sixth Amendment command that no one may be imprisoned as a result of a conviction in which he was denied the assistance of counsel.