Court Opinion

ID: 9684977
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:20:16.700645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:01.477257
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). I agree with Justice Marshall’s statement in Baldasar v. Illinois, 446 U.S. 222, 227-28 (1980):
“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 US 45, 69 (1932), his conviction is not sufficiently reliable to support the severe sanction of imprisonment. Argersinger v. Hamlin, [407 US 25 (1972)], at 31-36. An uncounseled 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.”
The legislature can not predicate imprisonment on a prior civil conviction unless the defendant had counsel, either at his own expense or, if indigent, at state expense or had properly waived the right to counsel. Deprivation of the defendant’s liberty as a direct consequence of an uncounseled conviction is forbidden by art I, secs 7 and 8, of the Wisconsin constitution. See State ex rel. Winnie v. Harris, 75 Wis. 2d 547, 249 N.W.2d 791 (1977).
For the foregoing reasons I dissent.