Court Opinion

ID: 9611764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:00:00.685389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:50.117290
License: Public Domain

HUNSTEIN, Justice,
concurring.
I concur fully in the majority’s holding that the burden of proof remains with the warden, i.e., the State, in direct habeas proceedings to establish that the habeas petitioner’s guilty plea was knowingly and intelligently entered under Boykin,6 Although this holding is not constitutionally mandated, it represents the better policy position than an application of our holding in Nash v. State, 271 Ga. 281 (519 SE2d 893) (1999) to direct habeas proceedings.
In Nash we recognized that the burden of proof should be placed on a recidivism defendant to establish that a guilty plea rendered in an earlier conviction, being used to enhance the sentence in the current conviction, was unconstitutional due to a failure to follow the Boykin procedures. Looking to Parke v. Raley, 506 U. S. 20 (113 SC 517, 121 LE2d 391) (1992) and relying primarily upon the presumption of regularity in the entry of judgments, including guilty pleas, we concluded that recidivism defendants were best positioned to carry the burden of proving the unconstitutionality of collateral convictions used to enhance sentence. Nash, supra at 285.
The situation is different in a habeas corpus proceeding filed by a defendant who pled guilty to the challenged conviction. A habeas petitioner challenging the voluntariness of a guilty plea can raise the issue only if it has not already been previously defaulted, i.e., was not an issue which was raised or could have been raised in a direct appeal from the conviction. Black v. Hardin, 255 Ga. 239 (4) (336 SE2d 754) (1985). In those situations where no timely direct appeal was brought from a conviction on a guilty plea, this Court has recognized that habeas corpus represents the sole remedy for a criminal defendant who subsequently asserts that the plea was not knowingly and voluntarily entered based on any matter which requires reference to facts outside the record. Stewart v. State, 268 Ga. 886 (494 SE2d 665) (1998). In these situations, habeas petitioners stand in *694virtually the same position as defendants who directly appealed their guilty pleas. While there are few reported appellate opinions in this area, a substantial percentage of the applications for certificate of probable cause to appeal the denial of habeas corpus petitions involve pro se criminal defendants in the same situation as the defendant in Stewart, challenging the voluntariness of a guilty plea based on matters not reflected in the record.
Habeas proceedings represent for many pro se habeas petitioners the sole avenue available to have the validity and constitutionality of their guilty pleas reviewed by another court. Thus, while habeas proceedings may be deemed “collateral” to the direct appeal, these proceedings are not as “collateral” as the sentence enhancement proceedings at issue in Nash and Parke v. Raley, supra. Indeed, the Louisiana Supreme Court in State v. Shelton, 621 S2d 769 (La. 1993), on which we heavily relied in Nash, explicitly declined to shift the burden of proof from the state in any post-conviction proceedings other than sentence enhancement (“multiple offender”) cases, leaving it to the state to prove the constitutionality of a guilty plea in a habeas corpus proceeding. Id., 621 S2d at 779, n. 23.
Accordingly, given the State’s burden of proving the constitutionality of a guilty plea in the direct appeal, I conclude it is only just and equitable that the State carry the burden of proving the constitutionality of a guilty plea in the direct habeas proceeding. I would not extend the holding in Nash beyond its application to collateral sentence enhancement proceedings in non-death penalty cases.

 Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238 (89 SC 1709, 23 LE2d 274) (1969).