Court Opinion

ID: 9573665
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:57:35.146742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:42:18.954761
License: Public Domain

Finney, Justice, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I would hold that a prior uncounselled conviction which did not result in incarceration may not be used to increase punishment under an enhanced penalty statute.
In affirming the circuit court, the majority concludes that an uncounselled conviction constitutionally valid under Scott v. Illinois, 440 U.S. 367, 99 S. Ct. 1158, 59 L. Ed. (2d) 383 (1979), is valid for all purposes.
The United States Supreme Court held in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, 92 S. Ct. 2006, 32 L. Ed. (2d) 530 (1972), that unless an accused has the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him, his conviction is not sufficiently reliable to support the severe sanction of imprisonment. Subsequently in Scott, swpra, the Supreme Court held that counsel must be provided if a prison term is actually imposed, not merely authorized. Baldasar v. Illinois, 446 U.S. 222, 100 S. Ct. 1585, 64 L. Ed. (2d) 169 (1980), decided after Scott, supra, held that an uncounselled misdemeanor conviction is constitutionally valid if the offender is not actually incarcerated. The five justices in Baldasar concurred, for differing reasons, that such a conviction may not be used to convert a subsequent misdemeanor into a felony with an enhanced prison term.
Apparently, the underlying consideration in these rulings is whether or not the accused would suffer an actual deprivation of personal freedom. In each instance, the uncounselled misdemeanor conviction was found to be constitutionally valid when *409no period of actual incarceration resulted therefrom. Hence, I would conclude that such a conviction may not form the basis for any subsequent incarceration.
“An uncounselled conviction does not become more reliable merely because the accused has been validly convicted for 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.” Baldasar, 446 U.S. at 228, 100 S. Ct. at 1588 (Marshall, J. concurring).
In my opinion, an uncounselled first offense DUI guilty plea, which did not result in imprisonment, should not be used to convert a subsequent DUI conviction to a second offense DUI for the purpose of enhanced punishment resulting in incarceration. I would reverse.