Court Opinion

ID: 9630018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:57:42.914343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:29.761800
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
dissenting. The majority, without engaging in independent analysis, holds today that the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738, 746-49, 114 S. Ct. 1921, 1927-28 (1994), “comports with the protections afforded under the Vermont Constitution.” 164 Vt. at 516, 671 A.2d at 1281. Because I believe that the Nichols decision rests on faulty reasoning, and represents a sharp break with a line of Supreme Court precedents affirming the importance of the right of indigent defendants to appointed counsel, I dissent.
I
The majority, following the Nichols Court, mischaracterizes this case by focusing on the function of recidivism statutes. Although the *523majority justifies its holding as supporting the “Legislature’s efforts to handle the increasing numbers of repeat offenders,” 164 Vt. at 519, 671 A.2d at 1283, today’s holding in fact undermines a criminal defendant’s right to counsel, a constitutional protection “necessary to insure fundamental human rights of life and liberty.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 462 (1938). The majority has chosen to follow the U.S. Supreme Court in ignoring decades of well-reasoned precedent establishing both the critical need of criminal defendants for the assistance of counsel, and the right of defendants to such assistance if a term of imprisonment is imposed.
Although the right to counsel established by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution initially encompassed only a criminal defendant’s right to employ counsel, the U.S. Supreme Court gradually expanded its meaning to include a right of indigent defendants to appointed counsel under most circumstances. The first exhaustive review of the issue came in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932). There, in reviewing the rape convictions of the Scottsboro Nine, the Court held that in a capital case, where a defendant is unable to employ counsel and incapable of putting on an adequate defense, failure to appoint counsel is a denial of due process and violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Id. at 71. Justice Sutherland, speaking for the Court, emphasized a defendant’s pressing need for the assistance of counsel:
The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence.
Id. at 68-69.
Despite this sweeping language, the decision in Powell did not establish an absolute right to appointed counsel, even in all capital *524cases, id. at 71, but left that decision to future cases. In Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. at 467-68, the Court held that indigent defendants facing federal charges are entitled to appointed counsel under the Sixth Amendment, unless the right is competently and intelligently waived. Twenty-five years later, overruling its previous decision in Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 (1942), the Court extended that holding to apply to a criminal defendant accused of a felony under state law. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 343-45 (1963).
The Court in Gideon did not indicate whether its holding was limited to defendants facing felony charges, so the extent of the right to appointed counsel remained uncertain until the Court’s decision in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972). Argersinger, an indigent defendant, had.reeeived a three-month jail sentence on the basis of an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction. The Court reversed his conviction, holding that “no person may be imprisoned for any offense, whether classified as petty, misdemeanor, or felony, unless he was represented by counsel at his trial.” Id. at 37. After Argersinger, lower courts were uncertain whether the right to counsel attached for any offense for which imprisonment was authorized, or only for those offenses for which imprisonment was actually imposed. In Scott v. Illinois, 440 U.S. 367 (1979), the Court emphasized that “actual imprisonment [is] the line defining the constitutional right to appointment of counsel.” Id. at 373. The Court held that “no indigent criminal defendant [may] be sentenced to a term of imprisonment unless the State has,afforded him the right to assistance of appointed counsel in his defense.” Id. at 374.
At each turn, as the Court expanded the right to appointed counsel, the Court recognized the insurmountable obstacles facing criminal defendants forced to fend for themselves without the assistance of counsel. The Johnson Court, describing the Sixth Amendment protections as essential to achieving justice, stated that the right to counsel “embodies a realistic recognition of the obvious truth that the average defendant does not have the professional legal skill to protect himself,” especially where the prosecution is presented by counsel, because “[t]hat which is simple, orderly and necessary to the lawyer, to the untrained layman may appear intricate, complex and mysterious.” Johnson, 304 U.S. at 462, 463. In Gideon, the Court again emphasized the inequality of resources and skills between uncounseled defendants and trained prosecutors:
Governments, both state and federal, quite properly spend vast sums of money to establish machinery to try defendants *525accused of crime. Lawyers to prosecute are everywhere deemed essential to protect the public’s interest in an orderly society. . . . That government hires lawyers to prosecute and defendants who have the money hire lawyers to defend are the strongest indications of the widespread belief that lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries.
Gideon, 372 U.S. at 344. The Court concluded that “any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” Id.
The Court later explicitly recognized that the reasoning of Gideon and Powell was not limited to felony trials, but is relevant to any criminal proceeding “where an accused is deprived of his liberty.” Argersinger, 407 U.S. at 32. The Court noted that complex legal and constitutional issues may be raised even in trials for petty offenses. Id. at 33. Also, relevant to this case, the Court pointed out the frequency of guilty pleas in misdemeanor cases, and the need for counsel both to advise defendants “of the prospect of going to jail or prison” and to ensure fair treatment by the prosecution. Id. at 34. Finally, the Argersinger Court emphasized the “‘assembly-line justice’” common in misdemeanor cases, id. at 36, and the prejudice suffered by misdemeanant defendants as a result of the “obsession for speedy dispositions, regardless of the fairness of the result.” Id. at 34.
This substantial body of precedent culminated in Scott, where the Court declined to extend the right to appointed counsel to midemeanant defendants who are not sentenced to a jail or prison term. Scott, 440 U.S. at 373-74. The Court in Scott did not conclude that such defendants are somehow better able to present a defense, or are less likely to be swept along in the “assembly-line” system of misdemeanor justice described in Argersinger. Rather, the Court concluded that “actual imprisonment is a penalty different in kind from fines or the mere threat of imprisonment” and that only defendants who suffer such a deprivation of liberty are entitled to appointed counsel.
In rejecting the argument of Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Marshall and Stevens, that the right to appointed counsel should attach for any offense for which imprisonment is authorized, id. at 382 (Brennan, J., dissenting), the Scott majority noted that extending the right to appointed counsel would “impose unpredictable, but necessarily substantial, costs on 50 quite diverse States.” Id. at 373. The Scott majority apparently concluded that the high cost of providing *526counsel for all misdemeanant defendants, or even all defendants charged with misdemeanor offenses for which imprisonment is authorized, outweighs the harm to those defendants who will suffer wrongful convictions because they lack the assistance of counsel, as long as those defendants do not suffer actual imprisonment as a result of the wrongful conviction. Or, put another way, although uncounseled misdemeanor convictions may not be as reliable as convictions obtained where the defendant is represented by counsel, that inherent unreliability does not rise to a level of constitutional significance unless the conviction results in a jail or prison sentence. See Nichols, 511 U.S. at 750, 114 S. Ct. at 1929 (Souter, J., concurring) (arguing that Scott relied on theory that reliability concern raised by uncounseled conviction “is tolerable when a defendant does not face the deprivation of his liberty”).
II.
Inexplicably, by holding that a defendant may receive a sentence of imprisonment based on a prior uncounseled conviction, both the Nichols Court and the majority have abandoned the line drawn so emphatically in Scott. The majority, in fact, does not even confront this inconsistency, but merely explains that the increased penalty for a subsequent offense under 23 V.S.A. § 1210(d) “does not impose punishment on the basis of the prior offense, but rather punishes only the last offense committed by the defendant.” 164 Vt. at 521, 671 A.2d at 1284. This reasoning is confusing and simply inadequate. The very language of the statute explicitly outlines heightened penalties for second and third offenses. 23 V.S.A. § 1210(c) & (d). A sentence imposed for a third offense, although punishing the most recent offense, is based as well on the fact of the first and second convictions. As the majority recognizes, the prior convictions must be alleged by the State as elements of the repeat-offender charge, and must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 164 Vt. at 520, 671 A.2d at 1283; State v. Cameron, 126 Vt. 244, 249-50, 227 A.2d 276, 279 (1967). The majority cannot sweep away the fact that defendant’s prior uncounseled DUI conviction “directly resulted” in a harsher sentence, Nichols, 511 U.S. at 757, 114 S. Ct. at 1933 (Blackmun, J., dissenting), by asserting that the prior conviction was somehow not the basis for the sentence.
The goal of recidivism statutes is to punish criminal acts more severely when they are committed by repeat offenders. Defendant received a felony sentence for his DUI conviction only because the *527court found that he had been twice previously convicted of the same offense. The majority’s insistence that defendant was punished for his most recent offense, although a true statement, unfairly glosses over defendant’s serious constitutional claim: that his prior uncounseled conviction is not reliable enough to serve as a predicate for a sentence of imprisonment.
Although not mentioned by the majority, this is the issue which concerned the Baldasar plurality and the dissenting justices in Nichols. As Justice Blackmun wrote in Nichols, the “concern here is not with multiple punishments, but with reliability. Specifically, is a prior uncounseled misdemeanor conviction sufficiently reliable to justify additional jail time imposed under an enhancement statute?” Nichols, 511 U.S. at 757-58, 114 S. Ct. at 1933 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). Scott, which was premised upon the significant difference between a sentence of imprisonment and other types of punishments, compels the conclusion that convictions resulting in imprisonment must be held to a higher standard of reliability — a standard that is not met if the defendant is deprived of the assistance of counsel. See id.
In this case, defendant’s conviction for DUI, third offense, and the resulting felony sentence imposed pursuant to 23 Y.S.A. § 1210(d), was based in part on a prior uncounseled DUI conviction. In that earlier proceeding, defendant was denied counsel, and entered a plea of guilty. Like the defendant in Nichols, whose sentence for a federal drug offense was increased by over two years because of a prior uncounseled DUI conviction, defendant could not have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for the prior conviction, because he was deprived of the assistance of counsel. Without counsel, defendants know they will be hampered in presenting a defense at trial. Without counsel, defendants are at a disadvantage in plea negotiations with the state’s attorney. Regardless of whether a jail term is imposed, the conviction retains the inherent unreliability of any uncounseled conviction.
The Argersinger Court’s concerns that a misdemeanant defendant without counsel might be lost in the shuffle of a busy court, or be swept along by a process not fully understood, apply with equal force to defendant’s prior conviction. If anything, such concerns ■ are heightened, not lessened, by the fact that defendant’s prior conviction was not considered sufficiently serious by the court or the state’s *528attorney to warrant a sentence of imprisonment.* None of the factors pointing to the unreliability of the first conviction is changed by the fact of the later one. I must agree with Justice Marshall that “[a]n uncounseled conviction does not become more reliable merely because the accused has been validly convicted of a subsequent offense.” Baldasar, 446 U.S. at 227-28 (Marshall, J., concurring). Indeed, the majority’s contrary holding represents “an illogical and unworkable deviation” from precedent. Id. at 229.
III.
The U.S. Supreme Court, despite persuasive arguments to the contrary, chose in Nichols to ignore the reasoning of its own precedents and to erode the protection of the right to counsel established by the Sixth Amendment. This Court, however, as the “final interpreter of the Vermont Constitution . . . has final say on what process is due in any given situation.” State v. Brunette, 148 Vt. 347, 350, 534 A.2d 198, 201 (1987). As the majority recognizes, we have on a previous occasion held that Chapter I, Article 10 of the Vermont Constitution provides greater protection for a criminal defendant than analogous provisions of the federal constitution. See, e.g., id. at 351, 534 A.2d at 201-02. Our one-time statement in dicta in Brunette that the “right to be heard by oneself and by counsel” conferred by Chapter I, Article 10 is “similar to the federal Sixth Amendment right,” id. at 352, 534 A.2d 202, does not foreclose the Court’s options in this case.
Our only precedent on this question is our decision in State v. Lafountain, 160 Vt. 313, 316-17, 628 A.2d 1243, 1245-46 (1993), a decision grounded in the federal constitution. In Lafountain, we interpreted the splintered Baldasar ruling on the narrowest grounds possible, as permitting the use of a prior uncounseled conviction to enhance a sentence of imprisonment, unless the prior offense carried an authorized sentence of greater than six months or the defendant was actually imprisoned for the prior offense. Id. Applying this rule, we upheld the defendant’s misdemeanor conviction and accompanying mandatory sentence, pursuant to 23 V.S.A. § 674(b), for driving with a suspended license (DLS), based in part on his two prior *529uncounseled civil DLS violations. Id. at 314, 628 A.2d at 1244. We did not, however, give the issue separate consideration under the Vermont Constitution, nor did the defendant argue that Chapter I, Article 10 required a different result than that reached in Baldasar.
Today, the question is directly presented as one of state constitutional law. Rather than following the shifting sands of the U.S. Supreme Court, I believe we should face this issue squarely and decide it independently. I would hold that the right to counsel established by Chapter I, Article 10 of the Vermont Constitution precludes the use of defendant’s prior uncounseled misdemeanor conviction to enhance the term of imprisonment imposed for this offense. Accordingly, I would remand the case for resentencing, without reference to the prior uncounseled conviction.

 Indeed, without the advice of counsel defendant may well have been unaware that his guilty plea could form the basis for a. sentence of imprisonment in a later proceeding. Although not raised here, Nichols held that a court is not obligated to inform a defendant that a conviction may later be used for sentence enhancement. Nichols, 511 U.S. at 748, 114 S. Ct. at 1928.