Court Opinion

ID: 9484229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:44:32.331283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:05.792948
License: Public Domain

RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join the opinion of the Court, except with respect to part I.B. In my view, the question whether Elliott’s five prior felony convictions, which he claims were constitutionally invalid, can be used against him for purposes of increasing his base offense level in this case is foreclosed by precedent in this Court. United States v. Norquay, 987 F.2d 475 (8th Cir.1993). This panel is without authority to reach a conclusion at odds with that of the Norquay panel.
In Norquay, this Court held that the Sixth Amendment prohibits the use of uncoúnseled misdemeanor convictions as a basis for enhancing a sentence of imprisonment. 987 F.2d at 482. I take it no one would contend that the United States Sentencing Commission has the power to authorize a violation of the Constitution. The Court holds today that Norquay is not in point because uncoun-selled convictions, either obtained or used in violation of the Sixth Amendment, are somehow distinguishable from convictions whose constitutional validity is disputed on other grounds. Here, Elliott claims not that his previous convictions are invalid because he was without counsel, but that they are invalid because no competency hearings were conducted before trial or plea of guilty, in violation of the due-process rule contained in Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966). If there is a distinction, which I doubt, it seems rather to cut in favor of Elliott’s, argument than against it. The invocation of Pate implies a claim that Elliott was unable' to understand what he was doing when he pleaded guilty or was tried, or at least that the circumstances raised a sufficient doubt of his ability in that respect to require an evidentiary hearing. If it is the factual reliability of a previous conviction that concerns us, I would think that a plea of guilty, for example, entered by an incompetent is at least as likely to be unreliable as a matter of fact as a conviction entered without benefit of counsel.
The Court suggests, ante at 857 n. 4, that constitutionally invalid convictions may be factually more reliable than other conduct that has been considered for sentence enhancement, such as pending indictments, indictments that did not result in trial or conviction, charges on which the defendant was acquitted, and uncharged conduct. This may well be true. (I leave to one side, at least for-the moment, whether the cases cited for these assertedly comparable propositions are themselves correct.) The basic point here, though, is not factual reliability: it is compliance with the Constitution. Where the circumstances raise a reasonable doubt as to a defendant’s competence before trial, a conviction obtained without a competency hearing is simply beyond the power of government. Such a procedure is fundamentally unfair. The Due Process Clause, either of the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment, says that government may not employ it. Factual reliability is beside the point. The Constitution requires that certain procedures be used in certain situations. If they are not, resulting convictions are without legal effect.
In any event, as I noted at the beginning of this opinion, Norquay forecloses this question. Norquay is a different ease, to be sure, but it is not distinguishable on any principled basis.