Court Opinion

ID: 9496945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:39:21.093625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:54.058972
License: Public Domain

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In this case, we must resolve a single question: should a state conviction for possession with intent to distribute marijuana, adjudged in absentia and without counsel, be used to enhance a defendant’s sentence for federal crimes committed almost twenty years later? Resolution of this question has grave consequences for Zuberi Hondo. Only if the uncounseled, in absentia state conviction — obtained when Hondo was nineteen, with an eighth grade education and apparently no prior experience with the criminal justice system — counts to enhance his federal sentence does Hondo qualify as a career offender. Absent the career offender status, the guideline range for Hondo’s sentence is 57-71 months imprisonment; with the career offender en*367hancement, it more than doubles to 151— 188 months.
The United States Probation Office recommended in its presentence report that Hondo’s uncounseled state conviction not be counted in determining Hondo’s federal sentence. The probation officer based this recommendation on the fact that Hondo “was not present or represented by counsel during his trial,” and that “there [was] no information indicating that Hondo voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived his right to representation.” Nevertheless, the district court counted the state conviction, reasoning that “[t]he proscription on counting uncounseled convictions does not apply where there has been a waiver by the defendant below,” and “this case ... has a [state] circuit judge’s finding of waiver.”
The majority affirms. Because I believe the record evidence demonstrates that the state trial judge never determined that Hondo’s waiver was knowing and intelligent, I cannot agree that the state conviction should be counted to make Hondo a career offender. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I.
Generally, a defendant in a federal sentencing proceeding has no constitutional right to challenge the use of a previous state conviction to enhance a subsequent federal sentence. Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 496-97, 114 S.Ct. 1732, 128 L.Ed.2d 517 (1994); see also United States v. Bacon, 94 F.3d 158, 163 (4th Cir.1996) (applying Custis to the context of Guidelines sentencing). As the majority properly recognizes, however, the case before us falls squarely within the “sole exception” to that general principle: the exception for prior convictions “obtained in violation of the right to counsel,” which defendants may challenge in later sentencing proceedings. Custis, 511 U.S. at 487, 114 S.Ct. 1732.
Although the state trial judge never expressly found that Hondo waived his right to counsel, the judge did implicitly find that Hondo’s conduct amounted to a voluntary waiver of his right to counsel. The record evidence provides an adequate basis for this conclusion.* But voluntariness, alone, does not suffice. “[W]aivers of counsel must not only be voluntary,” but “must also constitute a knowing and intelligent relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.” Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 482, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981). The Supreme Court has described a waiver as intelligent when the defendant “knows what he is doing and his choice is made with eyes open.” Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 279, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942).
The Court has not “prescribed any formula or script to be read to a defendant who states that he elects to proceed without counsel.” Iowa v. Edgardo Tovar, — U.S. -, -, 124 S.Ct. 1379, 1386, 158 L.Ed.2d 209 (2004). Rather, “[t]he determination of whether there has been an intelligent waiver of the right to counsel must depend, in each case, upon the particular facts and circumstances surrounding that case, including the background, expe*368rience, and conduct of the accused.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938). Other case-specific factors include “the complex or easily grasped nature of the charge, and the stage of the proceeding.” Edgardo Tovar, — U.S. at -, 124 S.Ct. 1379, 1386.
When the stage of the proceeding is, as here, the trial, the Court has said that “before a defendant may be allowed to proceed pro se, he must be warned specifically of the hazards ahead.” Id. In Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), the Court explained that a defendant “should be made aware of the dangers and disadvantages of [proceeding pro se ], so that the record will establish that he knows what he is doing.” Id. at 835, 95 S.Ct. 2525 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Recognizing the “enormous importance and role that an attorney plays at a criminal trial,” the Court has “imposed the most rigorous restrictions on the information that must be conveyed to a defendant, and the procedures that must be observed, before permitting him to waive his right to counsel at trial.” Patterson v. Illinois, 487 U.S. 285, 298, 108 S.Ct. 2389, 101 L.Ed.2d 261 (1988); see also id. at 299 n. 13, 108 S.Ct. 2389 (noting that “at trial, counsel is required to help even the most gifted layman adhere to the rules of procedure and evidence, comprehend the subtleties of voir dire, examine and cross-examine witnesses effectively (including the accused), object to improper prosecution questions, and much more”).
II.
Turning to the case at hand, I recognize that the burden is on Hondo to demonstrate that he was not made aware of the dangers and disadvantages of proceeding pro se. United States v. Jones, 977 F.2d 105, 109 (4th Cir.1992). I believe that he has met that burden and proved by a clear preponderance of the evidence that the state trial judge never took any steps to make him “aware of the[se] dangers and disadvantages.” Faretta, 422 U.S. at 835, 95 S.Ct. 2525.
First, the record — although otherwise relatively informative' — contains no evidence indicating that the state trial judge, or any one else, warned Hondo about the perils of proceeding pro se. Rather, the record simply shows that the state judge determined that Hondo “failed to assist Counsel and by [his] actions has indicated that [he] no longer desires representation by Petitioning Counsel.”
Moreover, the very finding of the state court that Hondo failed to appear before or “keep in contact with” the court, indicates that the trial judge never had any exchanges with Hondo, or even any firsthand observations of him. Thus, the judge had no opportunity to ensure that Hondo was making an informed choice to proceed pro se “with eyes open.” See, e.g., State v. Thompson, 355 S.C. 255, 584 S.E.2d 131, 136 (Ct.App.2003) (recognizing that asking the defendant if he understood the consequences of proceeding pro se was “ ‘quite obviously impossible’ when a defendant fails to appear in court”) (quoting Pennsylvania v. Ford, 715 A.2d 1141, 1143 (Pa.Super.1998)).
Moreover, the record lacks any indication that the state trial judge undertook to assess “from the record as a whole” whether Hondo understood the hazards of proceeding pro se. United States v. Gallop, 838 F.2d 105, 110 (4th Cir.1988). Indeed, had the state court attempted to make such a determination, the information before the court — regarding, for instance, Hondo’s age, educational background, and experience with the judicial process — all *369counseled against finding that Hondo understood these hazards. See Johnson, 304 U.S. at 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019 (citing “background” and “experience” as relevant factors); Gallop, 838 F.2d at 110 (listing among the factors to consider “the educational background, age and general capabilities of an accused”). Hondo was only nineteen at the time of the arrest at issue and had flunked out of ninth grade with a 0.0 grade point average; in addition, the arrest was apparently his first.
Thus, Hondo has not just offered evidence that the state court failed to record a determination of the knowingness or intelligence of his waiver. Cf. Gallop, 838 F.2d at 110. Rather, Hondo has also offered evidence that the state trial judge never even “undertook to focus on whether [Hondo] understood his right to counsel and intelligently and knowingly relinquished it.” Edwards, 451 U.S. at 484, 101 S.Ct. 1880.
The conflicts in Hondo’s testimony before the district court, on which that court and the majority rely, undoubtedly cast doubt on the credibility of Hondo’s claims of complete ignorance regarding the appointment of counsel to represent him and the date of his impending trial. However, they do not in any way undermine the undisputed facts in the record as to his youth, paltry educational background, and total inexperience with the criminal justice system at the time of his state arrest. These undisputed facts, paired with a record that contains no contrary evidence bearing on the intelligence or knowingness of Hondo’s waiver, require the conclusion that Hondo did not choose to proceed without counsel “with eyes open.”
Because Hondo’s waiver of his right to counsel was not knowing and intelligent, his uncounseled, in abstentia conviction cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. See, e.g., United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 449, 92 S.Ct. 589, 30 L.Ed.2d 592 (1972). Such a holding, of course, does not reverse or vacate Hondo’s already-served state conviction, but it does mean that the district court should not have counted the state conviction in computing Hondo’s criminal history. See Lackawanna County Disk Attorney v. Coss, 532 U.S. 394, 404, 121 S.Ct. 1567, 149 L.Ed.2d 608 (2001) (noting that when a defendant “can demonstrate that his current sentence was enhanced on the basis of a prior conviction that was obtained where there was a failure to appoint counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment, the current sentence cannot stand”).
For these reasons, I would vacate the sentence, and remand the case for resen-tencing with instructions not to assign criminal history points for the uncounseled conviction.

 The record reveals that Hondo was informed of his right to be present at his state trial and that the trial would proceed in his absence should he fail to attend. The record also documents that Hondo was represented by counsel as of September 14, 1984, but that Hondo "failed to maintain contact with [his] lawyer” and "to keep in contact with the Court, after due notice of a trial date by that lawyer.” The state trial judge found that this misconduct constituted an expression on Hondo’s part that he "no longer desire[d] representation” by his counsel.