Court Opinion

ID: 9755063
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:23:18.990483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:02.255973
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
dissenting. If the majority opinion provided a meaningful remedy for a defendant, facing an enhanced sentence, to challenge a predicate conviction, I would join it. The reality, however, is that the challenge method the majority has allowed is likely, in DUI cases like those before us, to provide relief only after the defendant has served *194the enhanced sentence. Thus, the remedy comes too late to be meaningful, an overriding factor ignored by the majority. For that reason, I dissent.
Consistent with its decision that these defendants can bring post-conviction relief (PCR) proceedings under 18 V.S.A. § 7131, but only after defendants have been sentenced on the enhanced offense, the majority faced two options on how it would allow defendants to challenge one or more of the predicate convictions: (1) as defendants sought, they could challenge the predicate offenses as part of the proceedings in the criminal case in which the State seeks enhancement; or (2) defendants could challenge the predicate convictions in a PCR filed under § 7131. In choosing to allow only the second option, the majority relies heavily on three decisions of the United States Supreme Court—Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485 (1994); Lackawanna County District Attorney v. Coss, 532 U.S. 394 (2001); and Daniels v. United States, 532 U.S. 374 (2001). I do not find these decisions to be dispositive.
If this case had arisen before Custis, it is highly likely that defendants would have prevailed. Although we had never ruled directly on the question presented here, the lower courts were allowing constitutional challenges to predicate convictions based on guilty pleas in the. proceeding in which the State was seeking an enhanced sentence, and we reviewed a number of these decisions without questioning the procedure. See, e.g., State v. Tatro, 161 Vt. 182, 186, 635 A.2d 1204, 1207 (1993). The procedure was consistent with, black letter law from around the country:
Generally, underlying prior convictions based on pleas of guilty must be obtained in compliance with constitutional standards, and a plea without these advisements may not be used to supplement the charge in an habitual offender proceeding, or to serve as a basis for enhancing punishment.
24 C. J.S. Crimirtal Law § 1658, at 308-09.
Custis changed this situation primarily by ruling that this procedure is not constitutionally required except in the case of challenges based on denial of the right to counsel. 511 U.S. at 496. Thus, in light of the Custis holding, defendants have not argued here that the procedure they seek is constitutionally required. They argue instead that it is the fairest and most efficient method of resolving the legality of predicate convictions and is consistent with the statutory scheme.
*195Some, but not yet a majority of, state courts have reconsidered their holdings on challenging predicate convictions in light of Custis. Many of these courts have assumed that defendants were allowed to challenge predicate convictions within the enhanced sentence proceeding for reasons other than denial of the right to counsel because it was thought that the federal constitution required this procedure. Once Custis made clear there was no such constitutional requirement, these courts simply abandoned the challenge procedure in noncounsel cases without analysis of whether it should be continued as a policy matter. Thus, these courts never considered the arguments defendants are making here.
Among the remaining courts that have considered the policy arguments, the most thorough and persuasive analysis has come from the California courts. In a pre-Custis decision, the California Supreme Court held in People v. Sumstine, 687 P.2d 904, 914 (Cal. 1984), that a defendant could challenge a predicate conviction, within the enhanced sentence proceeding, where the challenge alleged that the predicate conviction was based on an unconstitutional guilty plea procedure in violation of the requirements of Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969). In reaching this decision, the court relied upon an earlier case, People v. Coffey, 430 P.2d 15 (Cal. 1967), in which the challenge of the predicate conviction was based on a denial of the right to counsel. Coffey held that “it is clearly in the interest of efficient judicial administration that attacks upon the constitutional basis of prior convictions be disposed of at the earliest possible opportunity, and we are therefore of the view that, if the issue is properly raised at or prior to trial, it must be determined by the trial court.” Id. at 22. Sumstine held that this rationale applied equally in cases involving challenges to predicate convictions based on constitutional attacks to the guilty plea procedure. 687 P.2d at 912-13.
In three decisions, the California Supreme Court reconsidered Sumstine after Custis. See People v. Allen, 981 P.2d 525 (Cal. 1999); Garcia v. Superior Court, 928 P.2d 572 (Cal. 1997); People v. Horton, 906 P.2d 478 (Cal. 1995). In the last and most relevant, People v. Allen,1 the court rejected the analysis of Custis that suggested that considering attacks on predicate convictions in the enhanced sentence *196proceeding was not the most efficient procedure. Central to the court’s decision is its recognition that:
Custis ... set[s] the floor for federal constitutional purposes, [but does] not... prohibit states from establishing rules of procedure to facilitate the smooth and efficient operation of their trial courts.
Allen, 981 P.2d at 537. That recognition should guide this decision, but unfortunately does not. I discuss the California court’s reasoning in connection with the majority’s analysis of these issues below.
Although it is in a sense backward, I start with the majority’s reasons not to allow the challenge to the predicate convictions in the enhanced sentence proceeding. The majority draws two from the Custis analysis. The first is that requiring PCR review supports finality of judgments. Custis explained this policy as additional support for its conclusion, stating that “ ‘inroads on the concept of finality tend to undermine confidence in the integrity of our procedures.’ ” 511 U.S. at 497 (quoting United States v. Addonizio, 442 U.S. 178, 184 n.11 (1979)). It also noted that this concept has extra weight when the challenged judgment is based on a guilty plea.
As commentators noted about Custis, the Court’s discussion of finality of judgments made sense only if the Court was precluding all federal review of state judgments that are used as a predicate to an enhanced federal sentence. See Note, More than a Question of Forum: The Use of Unconstitutional Convictions to Enhance Sentences Following Custis v. United States, 47 Stan. L. Rev. 1323, 1336 (1995). As the majority notes here, that is exactly the effect of the later cases, Daniels v. United States and Lackawanna County Dist. Attorney v. Coss. Thus, the Custis rule supports a total denial of review, not a decision on where and when review should occur. The majority acknowledges that we are deciding where and when review should occur, not whether review should occur. While the majority suggests that finality of a predicate judgment is promoted by requiring that the challenge to it be in a separate PCR proceeding, exactly the opposite is true. Allowing the challenge in the enhancement criminal case will only deny its use in enhancement. A successful PCR challenge will entirely overturn the judgment.
Like the Supreme Court in Custis, the majority grounds most of its rationale on practical concerns. The Supreme Court noted in Custis that it is easy to determine whether there has been a denial of right to counsel, the only ground on which it allowed a challenge to the *197predicate conviction, but not easy to determine whether a guilty plea was voluntary, knowing and intelligent. It commented that federal courts would have to “rummage through frequently nonexistent or difficult to obtain state-court transcripts or records that may date from another era, and may come from any one of the 50 States.” Custis, 511 U.S. at 496. It also noted that such challenges would “require... delay and protraction of the federal sentencing process.” Id. at 497.
The majority relies on the above language from Custis noting that the needed transcript may come from any district court in Vermont or from another state. It also asserts that allowing challenges to predicate convictions in the criminal proceeding in which the State seeks the enhanced sentence would turn sentencing into a trial. It asserts that a PCR proceeding allows for notice and evidentiary development, including calling the defendant as a witness, and that these important procedures could not happen in the district court. Finally, it asserts that more complicated enhancement proceedings impose a substantial burden on the district court. None of these reasons are persuasive.
With respect to the availability of transcripts, Custis eliminated any problem to the State or the court caused by the unavailability of transcripts in its holding that defendant has the burden to show lack of substantial compliance with Rule 11, a holding in which I join. See also State v. Brown, 165 Vt. 79, 88, 676 A.2d 350, 356 (1996) (in challenging predicate DUI convictions on basis of denial of right to counsel, a defendant has the burden to show he was eligible for appointed counsel). Even if defendant did not have the burden, I cannot accept the argument that we face difficulty in obtaining needed transcripts. Nowhere in our criminal and PCR appeal decisions is there any indication that lack of transcripts has made impossible review of guilty pleas, even pleas rendered some years ago.
Second, DUI enhancement is already part of the trial in Vermont. See State v. Cameron, 126 Vt. 244, 249-50, 227 A.2d 276, 280 (1967). Enhancement is determined by the jury in “the second phase of the bifurcated proceeding.” State v. Baril, 155 Vt. 344, 346, 583 A.2d 621, 622 (1990). The majority’s characterization of the claim in this case as “defendants should be allowed to challenge their predicate convictions at the sentencing phase of an enhancement charge” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the enhancement procedure in this state. Even if the majority’s discussion accurately described the enhancement process, however, it ignores that the constitutionality of a guilty plea is a question of law that must be raised pretrial in a motion to suppress or strike. See V.R.Cr.P. 12(b); see also People v. *198Allen, 981 P.2d at 532. Resolution of a challenge to a predicate conviction could not hold up sentencing. Further, adherence to the motion rules will allow exactly the notice and evidentiary development that the majority sees in PCR proceedings.
The Supreme Court of California thoroughly examined the burden of resolving guilty plea related challenges to predicate convictions in the enhanced sentence proceeding. See Allen, 981 P.2d at 537. Based on 15 years of allowing such challenges, it found that they entailed “little disruption.” Id. Our limited experience in handling such challenges also shows no disruption. See, e.g., Tatro, 161 Vt. at 186, 635 A.2d at 1207.
I think the California conclusion is particularly reliable because the court did refuse to allow predicate conviction challenges in the enhancement proceeding if the challenge is based on ineffective assistance of counsel. See People v. Garcia, 928 P.2d at 579. There the court found that allowing such challenges would seriously disrupt the criminal trial in the enhancement proceeding. Thus, the court carefully calibrated the administrative difficulties raised by the type of challenge involved.2
Although none of our cases indicate that additional evidence would be necessary in a Rule 11 proceeding, the majority raises the specter that such evidence could not be obtained from the defense in a criminal motion hearing. In fact, we held that the defendant could be required to give exactly such evidence in Brown, 165 Vt. at 88, 676 A.2d at 356. Moreover, the California courts routinely require such evidence in challenges to predicate convictions based on guilty pleas because the California rule is that the defendant must show that despite the lack of advisement from the court he or she did not actually know of the .rights being waived. See Allen, 981 P.2d at 535. Thus, the defendant must routinely testify in California, and despite the need to take additional evidence, the California Supreme Court found no substantial burden from challenges to predicate convictions.
The majority’s final reason is equally unavailing. The majority has simply transferred a burden from the district court to the superior court. Since trial judges are assigned to superior and district court as needed to meet demand, and are frequently assigned to both courts at *199once, I fail to see how a decision on which court will hear, a predicate challenge is relevant. Indeed, the risk of the majority’s approach is that defendants will bring early challenges to convictions that will never actually be used for enhancement purposes knowing that a later challenge will be ineffective. Thus, the risk is that the majority’s ruling will increase the work of the trial courts, not decrease it.
While I find the majority’s reasons for its policy choice weak, my fundamental disagreement with the majority lies in its failure to consider the main reason why not to require a separate PCR proceeding in DUI enhancement cases. Although a third conviction of DUI is a felony, a defendant is unlikely to spend much more than a year in jail for this offense alone. At the same time a PCR petition challenging a predicate conviction is unlikely to be resolved in less than a year in most superior courts in Vermont. Thus, PCR relief can come only after a defendant has served all, or most of, a sentence. It is not a practical remedy because it does not precede the imposition of the enhanced sentence.
The majority’s secondary response is that if the above accurately states the facts we can “calibrate a practical remedy to a real — not theoretical — problem.” 174 Vt. at 192, 807 A.2d at 365. I hope our criminal rules committee will act on this statement to provide by roile the meaningful remedy the majority is unwilling to provide by this decision.
But I am more concerned by its primary response — that defendants are not entitled to “all avenues of appeal” before sentence is imposed. The question before us is whether we should consider the challenge to the predicate conviction an essential part of the criminal case in which enhancement is sought or a separate event to occur in a later separate proceeding, post-conviction relief. In neither case is it an appeal, and labeling it so does not advance our inquiry except to belittle the position that we should ensure that a sentence is correctly and constitutionally imposed in compliance with the law before demanding that a defendant serve that sentence. Because I hold that position, and believe that ensuring the accuracy of a conviction is more important than ensuring a speedy sentencing, I dissent. I am authorized to state that Justice Johnson joins this dissent.

 Allen arose under California’s three strikes law for recidivist felony convictions. The issue does not actually arise in DUI cases in California because the right to challenge predicate convictions within the DUI case in which enhancement is sought is provided by statute in California. See Cal. Yeh. Code § 41403 (2000).

 The majority suggests that the California approach cannot be carefully calibrated if three members of the California Supreme Court concurred in the Allen decision, but did not join its reasoning. In fact, the main point of the concurrence was to support additional restrictions on challenging predicate convictions, not directly raised by the facts of the case. Allen, 981 P.2d at 538-43. I agree with the restrictions urged in the concurrence.