Court Opinion

ID: 9663495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:40:35.270951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:50.440421
License: Public Domain

*871White, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent from the portion of the majority’s opinion that limits challenges to the constitutionality of a prior conviction at an enhancement hearing.
History in the area of the constitutionality of state procedures under recidivist statutes begins with Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109, 88 S. Ct. 258, 19 L. Ed. 2d 319 (1967). In Burgett, the Supreme Court held that an uncounseled prior conviction could not be used as the basis for enhancing a sentence pursuant to a state habitual criminal statute. The U.S. Supreme Court stated, 389 U.S. at 113-15:
The States are free to provide such procedures as they choose, including rules of evidence, provided that none of them infringes a guarantee in the Federal Constitution. The recent right-to-counsel cases, starting with Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, are illustrative of the limitations which the Constitution places on state criminal procedures. Those limitations sometimes touch rules of evidence.
. . . [S]ince the defect in the prior conviction was denial of the right to counsel, the accused in effect suffers anew from the deprivation of that Sixth Amendment right.
While Burgett was limited to the use of uncounseled prior convictions in enhancing a sentence, broad language suggesting that any unconstitutional prior conviction cannot be the basis of an enhanced sentence is contained in Burgett. Additionally, a number of courts have relied on Burgett for that proposition. (See, e.g., People v Harris, 61 N.Y.2d 9, 459 N.E.2d 170, 471 N.Y.S.2d 61 (1983); State v. Holsworth, 93 Wash. 2d 148, 607 P.2d 845 (1980).)
The requirements in receiving guilty pleas that are now popularly termed “Boykin requirements” were developed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S. Ct. 1709, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274 (1969). Boykin established that several federal constitutional rights are involved in a waiver that occurs when a plea of guilty is entered in a state criminal trial. The three rights delineated in Boykin as particularly implicated in any plea of guilty are the privilege against compulsory *872self-incrimination guaranteed by the 5th amendment and applicable to the states by reason of the 14th amendment, the right to a jury trial, and the right to confront one’s accusers. “We cannot presume a waiver of these three important federal rights from a silent record.” Boykin, 395 U.S. at 243. In Boykin, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the requirements applicable to establish an effective waiver of the sixth amendment right to counsel apply with equalforce to the rights waived when a guilty plea is accepted. As stated by the Court, 395 U.S. at 242-43:
[A] plea of guilty is more than an admission of conduct; it is a conviction. Ignorance, incomprehension, coercion, terror, inducements, subtle or blatant threats might be a perfect cover-up of unconstitutionality. The question of an effective waiver of a federal constitutional right in a proceeding is of course governed by federal standards.
Boykin stands for the proposition that all pleas accepted without evidence of compliance with the Boykin requirements, on the record, are constitutionally invalid. It therefore seems obvious that a conviction obtained without Boykin compliance, because invalid, cannot be used as the predicate conviction to support the imposition of an enhanced sentence under a recidivist statute.
Whether guilty pleas that have been obtained without complying with the requirements of Boykin can be used as the basis for enhancing a sentence has not affirmatively been decided by the Supreme Court. However, two U.S. Supreme Court opinions support the proposition that compliance with Boykin is required before a plea can be used to enhance a sentence under a recidivist statute. In Baldasar v. Illinois, 446 U.S. 222, 100 S.Ct. 1585, 64 L. Ed. 2d 169 (1980), a per curiam opinion, the Court held that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction cannot be used under an enhanced penalty statute to convert a subsequent misdemeanor into a felony with a prison term. The Court, in the concurring opinion of Justice Marshall, stated, “[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 *873repeat-offender statute.” 446 U.S. at 228. Although four judges dissented, their dissent was based upon the fact that the prior uncounseled misdemeanor convictions were valid for the purposes of their own penalties as long as the defendant received no prison term. The Court distinguished between the use of these previously valid convictions and constitutionally invalid convictions being put to other uses in court.
Additionally, in Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U.S. 422, 103 S. Ct. 843, 74 L. Ed. 2d 646 (1983), the U.S. Supreme Court discussed the applicability of Boykin to a case concerning the admissibility of a prior conviction to prove a “specification” in an aggravated murder conviction. The defense in Marshall alleged that the prior conviction was defective under Boykin and therefore inadmissible pursuant to Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109, 88 S. Ct. 258, 19 L. Ed. 2d 319 (1967). Although the Court upheld the admission of the prior conviction, its rationale was that the state court had determined Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S. Ct. 1709, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274 (1969), had been complied with, and the factual findings of a state court are to be accorded great deference in a federal habeas proceeding. The Court in Marshall, supra, reiterated that the governing standard determining whether a plea of guilty is voluntary is governed by federal law and did not contest the applicability of Boykin to prior convictions under an enhanced penalty statute.
This court, in State v. Turner, 186 Neb. 424, 183 N.W.2d 763 (1971), and State v. Tweedy, 209 Neb. 649, 309 N.W.2d 94 (1981), held that although strict compliance with Boykin is unnecessary, nonetheless, the requirements must be met before a plea can be accepted. Finally, in State v. Gonzales, 218 Neb. 43, 352 N.W.2d 571 (1984), in language the majority is disapproving today, we held that the constitutional validity of the defendant’s prior convictions could be contested at the habitual criminal proceeding. However, Gonzales was not the first opinion by this court to hold that a challenge to a prior conviction could be raised at an enhancement proceeding. In State v. McGhee, 184 Neb. 352, 358, 167 N.W.2d 765, 769 (1969), we stated, “Such cases as Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109, 88 S. Ct. 258, 19 L. Ed. 2d 319, indicate quite clearly that in a *874habitual criminal proceeding a prior conviction is subject to attack on constitutional grounds...
Although the eighth circuit, in Gonzales v. Grammer, 848 F.2d 894 (8th Cir. 1988), noted that a state can set up whatever procedural requirements necessary to process challenges to prior convictions in a habitual criminal proceeding, to the extent that this court sets up no procedure for processing the challenges in an enhancement proceeding, I believe the majority is in error.
As stated in Burgett, by utilizing an uninformed guilty plea in an enhancement proceeding, a violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights is “renewed,” which thus violates due process. This subsequent use of a constitutionally invalid conviction renews the constitutional violation. Although Burgett was concerned only with uncounseled pleas, there is no logical reason why uxiBoykinized guilty pleas are any less violative of due process than uncounseled ones. As stated by the Supreme Court in Boykin, the requirements applicable to establish an effective waiver of the sixth amendment right to counsel apply with equal force to the rights waived when a guilty plea is accepted. By holding that constitutional challenges to the voluntariness of guilty pleas cannot be raised in enhancement proceedings, this court is according less deference to the constitutional rights infringed when a plea without Boykin is accepted than to the rights at issue when counsel is not afforded to the defendant. This is a distinction clearly not authorized by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The due process clause of the 14th amendment “protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368 (1970). Therefore, if a defendant is convicted with insufficient evidence, his or her 14th amendment rights are clearly implicated. Pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. § 39-669.07(3) (Cum. Supp. 1986), two or more valid convictions are a necessary element, and this requirement, therefore, must be proven by the State beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, evidence was introduced suggesting that the prior pleas did not comply with Boykin. Perhaps because the *875record is silent, those pleas are invalid. Accordingly, a conviction of driving while under the influence, third offense, would be based on insufficient evidence in violation of the 14th amendment.
I submit this cause should be remanded for resentencing and the State should be required to establish the constitutional validity of the prior convictions at the sentencing hearing before these convictions can be used as the basis for enhancing criminal penalties.