Court Opinion

ID: 9428998
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:25.45817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:16.734369
License: Public Domain

*439Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall joins,
dissenting.
I join Justice Stevens’ dissent. I write separately only to emphasize that more is subject to question in the Court’s *440opinion than its penultimate sentence. See ante, at 438, and n. 6.
I
The bulk of the Court’s opinion is devoted not to defending Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554 (1967), but rather to establishing that this case is not governed on all fours by Burgett v. Texas, 389 U. S. 109 (1967). Burgett held, notwithstanding Spencer, that it was inherently prejudicial to admit an unconstitutional, uncounseled prior conviction against a defendant at a trial on a new offense, regardless of the purpose for which it had been introduced or of any limiting instructions given to the jury. 389 U. S., at 115.1
The proceedings below concerned themselves exclusively with the question whether respondent’s 1972 conviction for attempted murder in Illinois was the type of conviction which, under Burgett, could not have been admitted against him in the later Ohio trial for any purpose, regardless of the curative instructions or procedural protections Ohio might *441have adopted. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted respondent’s habeas petition solely on the ground that the Illinois conviction admitted in evidence at his Ohio trial had been obtained unconstitutionally, because respondent had entered a guilty plea without notice that he was pleading guilty to an attempted murder charge as well as an aggravated battery charge. A defendant’s failure to receive notice of the charge to which he pleads guilty renders his plea invalid and a conviction based upon it unconstitutional. See Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U. S. 637 (1976); Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238 (1969). The conviction is also completely unreliable, since it rests entirely on a guilty plea that cannot be taken as an admission that the defendant indeed committed the elements of the offense. So if the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was right about respondent’s failure to receive notice in Illinois, the conviction should not have been admitted into evidence in Ohio, his Ohio conviction was invalid under Burgett, and the court properly granted his habeas corpus petition.
II
Both Justice Rehnquist’s opinion for the Court, ante, at 426-430, and Justice Stevens’ dissent, post, at 457, show why the factual correctness of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s conclusion as to notice is a close question. The records of respondent’s guilty plea and conviction in Illinois leave the matter in considerable doubt. The formal statement of conviction preserved in Illinois records states only that respondent was found guilty of “AGGRAVATED BATTERY, ETC.” App. 5. The transcript of respondent’s guilty plea proceedings shows that the trial judge asked him to admit, “that you did on August 25, 1968, commit the offense of aggravated battery on one Dorothy Maxwell, and that you did on the same date attempt on Dorothy Maxwell, with a knife,” and he answered, “Yes, sir.” Id., at 8. The judge also mentioned the possible sentence for “attempt.” Id., at 9. In the absence of more, neither of these records *442clearly establishes that respondent had notice that he was pleading guilty to attempted murder as well as aggravated battery. On the other hand, respondent was represented by competent counsel in Illinois, and he was arraigned on an indictment that clearly charged him with attempted murder.
The Court resolves this tension on the basis of rules of law derived from Sumner v. Mata, 449 U. S. 539 (1981), and on dictum in Henderson v. Morgan, supra. Henderson states that in cases such as this, where the record does not clearly show that the defendant received notice, “it may be appropriate to presume that in most cases defense counsel routinely explain the nature of the offense in sufficient detail to give the accused notice of what he is being asked to admit.” Id., at 647. The Court thus holds:
“Under Henderson, respondent must be presumed to have been informed, either by his lawyers or at one of the presentencing proceedings, of the charges on which he was indicted. Given this knowledge of the indictment and the fact that the indictment contained no other attempt charges, respondent could only have understood the judge’s reference to ‘attempt on Dorothy Maxwell, with a knife’ as a reference to the indictment’s charge of attempt to kill.” Ante, at 437-438.
Under Sumner v. Mata, supra, and 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) (8), the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit may have been required to accept the inference that respondent was informed of the charges against him, if it was drawn by the Ohio Court of Appeals, as fairly supported by the record.2 *443But, assuming the Ohio court drew such an inference (it did not say so), the inference fails to resolve this case. Both respondent’s testimony and the applicable law establish that, although he may have known he had been charged with attempted murder, it does not necessarily follow that he knew he was pleading guilty to attempted murder.
Testifying at a pretrial hearing in Ohio, respondent claimed that he was told of a plea bargain whereby he would plead guilty only to aggravated battery and be sentenced accordingly. He testified that his Illinois lawyer told him “[t]hat he had talked it over with the State’s attorney and that again we would go out and the judge would say a lot of things but it was just for the record’s sake and that we was copping out to aggravated battery from two to four, that was the agreement.” App. 24; cf. id., at 84-85. It is hard to judge respondent’s credibility on a cold record, but this statement is hardly incredible on its face. The State made no effort to impeach it, unlike respondent’s claim that he was never told he had been charged with attempted murder, see id., at 27-75, and the Ohio Court of Appeals did not address it, see App. to Pet. for Cert. A-40 — A-42; ante, at 429-430. Apart from the Illinois trial judge’s ambiguous reference to “attempt. . . with a knife,” nothing at respondent’s guilty plea proceeding would have informed him that he was doing more than going forward with the deal that had been proposed to him. He was sentenced to two to four years in prison — two years is the minimum sentence for aggravated battery3 — and his con*444viction statement specified no crime but “AGGRAVATED BATTERY.”
More importantly, respondent’s understanding thát he was pleading guilty only to aggravated battery was perfectly reasonable, despite the judge’s mention of “attempt.” Since at least 1958, Illinois has had a state statutory and constitutional rule forbidding convictions — not merely punishments— for two offenses based on a single act. See People v. King, 66 Ill. 2d 551, 560-566, 363 N. E. 2d 838, 842-843 (1977) (discussing development of Illinois law); Illinois Criminal Code of 1961, §l-7(m) (current version at Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, K1005-8-4(a) (1979)). This rule has been applied several times to vacate one conviction when a defendant, in a single trial, has been convicted of both aggravated battery and attempted murder resulting from the same act.4 E. g., People ex rel. Walker v. Pate, 53 Ill. 2d 485, 292 N. E. 2d 387 (1973); People v. Carter, 21 Ill. App. 3d 207, 315 N. E. 2d 47 (1974); People v. Peery, 81 Ill. App. 2d 372, 377, 225 N. E. 2d 730, 732 (1967).
Under Illinois law, therefore, respondent could not have been convicted of both “aggravated battery” and “etc.” if the “etc.” referred to the attempted murder of Dorothy Maxwell. Upon hearing the reference to “attempt . . . with a knife,” respondent would have been warranted in thinking that the *445judge was indulging in a lawyer’s well-known penchant for redundancy.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the transcript of respondent’s Illinois guilty plea was inadequate to show that he was aware that he was pleading guilty to attempted murder as well as aggravated battery. The Ohio Court of Appeals reached a different conclusion about the same transcript. But in finding that respondent had made a knowing and intelligent plea, the Ohio court relied completely on the facts that respondent answered “Yes” to the question described above, that he stated that he understood he was waiving his right to trial, and that his lawyers stipulated that there were sufficient facts to prove the charges in the indictment. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-42; see ante, at 429-430. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s result is perfectly consistent with Sumners, “presumption of correctness,” see 449 U. S., at 550-551, because the Ohio Court of Appeals’ findings, read in light of Illinois law or of respondent’s unimpeached testimony in the Ohio trial court, fall short of establishing that respondent knew that he was pleading guilty to attempted murder.
This Court now slips a new rationale beneath the flawed determination of the Ohio court. It holds that respondent’s guilty plea must have been valid if at some point, under Henderson, it is likely that he learned of all the charges against him.5 Like the Ohio court, however, this Court fails to explain its leap from notice of the charges to notice of which charges were included in the guilty plea. It makes no sense whatsoever to maintain that Henderson required the Court *446of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to accept an inference that respondent’s counsel had explained all the charges against him, but at the same time to ignore the likelihood that his lawyer also told him that he could not be convicted of both aggravated battery and attempted murder. As a factual matter, respondent’s lawyer may or may not have explained the state conviction rule to him. But the Court is left with a rule of law that makes sense only if respondent was ignorant of settled state law, for only then would the trial judge’s brief reference to “attempt” seem anything but absurd.
HH 1 — 1
A simple, but unanswerable question of fact and a simple question of law are central to this case. Did respondent have actual knowledge that he was pleading guilty to attempted murder as well as aggravated battery in 1972? At this point, more than 10 years later and in the face of an ambiguous record, no factfinder could be completely certain that a particular answer is correct. So the crucial question becomes what makes an ambiguous record sufficient to support a state court’s finding that a plea was knowing, voluntary, and intelligent. Under Henderson, mere absence of a recitation of all the charges at a guilty plea hearing may not be enough to render a plea unconstitutional, but in this case respondent had good reason to believe he was pleading guilty only to aggravated battery.
By dismissing part of the record, failing to confront the difference between notice of charges and notice of the charges to which one is pleading guilty, and disregarding the law of Illinois, the Court manages to fit this case within a rule of law that permits it to reverse the judgment below. And to what end this Procrustean effort? To uphold the great principle that the unique record before us was not so ambiguous as to forbid an inference that at some point respondent may have known what the charges against him were? To reaffirm that a conviction obtained under such circumstances is not so fun*447damentally unsound as to bar a zealous prosecutor from introducing it into evidence in some later prosecution, for (as Justice Stevens and Justice Blackmun show) no good reason at all? To relieve Ohio of the burden of a single retrial? I question that this case was “certworthy.” The game hardly seems worth the candle.

 Whether or not Spencer may still be read as broadly as it was written, the two cases are reconcilable. Spencer took a balancing approach to interpreting the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and held only that the risk of prejudice alone from admitting a valid prior conviction — provided the jury was given proper limiting instructions — did not necessarily outweigh the legitimate benefits the State might derive from the procedures that required admitting the conviction. See 385 U. S., at 562-563. Spencer expressly distinguished situations in which admission of the prior conviction, in addition to exposing the defendant to a risk of prejudice, might compromise a specific federal right. Id., at 564-565. Burgett recognized that admitting unconstitutional prior convictions did compromise vital federal rights. Furthermore, the conviction admitted into evidence in Burgett was not merely unconstitutional, it was also unreliable evidence that the defendant had in fact committed the prior offense, because the defendant had not had the benefit of the advice of counsel. These additional elements of unconstitutionality and unreliability tip the delicate balance struck by Spencer. Thus, Burgett unquestionably states good law: where a defendant’s prior conviction is unconstitutional or unreliable, it may not be introduced in evidence against that defendant for any purpose.

 In the absence of proof to the contrary, Henderson does support a presumption that respondent’s Illinois counsel informed him at some point of the charges against him. In this case, however, respondent submitted proof to the contrary — he testified at length that he had never been told, by his lawyer or by the court, that he was being charged with attempted murder. See App. 24-25, 85-94 (transcript of hearing before Ohio trial court). Under the normal rule applying in federal courts, a judge-made “presumption” does no more than require the opposing party to go forward *443with evidence to rebut or meet it. See Fed. Rule Evid. 301; H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1597, pp. 5-6 (1974). Even if the State had rebutted respondent’s testimony — and it did not — respondent’s showing clearly sufficed to meet any presumption created by Henderson. At most, then, Henderson’s effect on this case was to create a permissible inference that respondent had been informed of the charges against him.

 See Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶¶ 12-4(e), 1005-8-1(6) (1979). At the time respondent was sentenced in Illinois, it was not clear whether there was any minimum sentence for attempted murder. See People v. Moore, 69 Ill. 2d 520, 372 N. E. 2d 666 (1978); People v. Jones, 55 Ill. App. 3d 446, *444455, 370 N. E. 2d 1142, 1149 (1977). Since then the Illinois Legislature has imposed a 6-year minimum. See Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶¶8 — 4(c)(1), 1005-8-l-(3) (1979).

 The Illinois indictment establishes that respondent’s aggravated battery charge rested on precisely the same facts as his attempted murder charge:
“[0]n August 25th, 1968, . . . Robert Lonberger committed the offense of aggravated battery, in that he, in committing a battery on Dorothy Maxwell used a deadly weapon ....
“[0]n August 25th, 1968, . . . Robert Lonberger committed the offense of attempt, in that he, with intent to commit the offense of murder, intentionally and knowingly attempted to kill Dorothy Maxwell by cutting Dorothy Maxwell with a knife without lawful justification. . . .” App. 2-3.

 This holding is obviously limited by Henderson itself, which makes clear that a habeas petitioner is free to introduce evidence rebutting the inference the Court draws in this case, and courts are free to believe that evidence. See 426 U. S., at 647. Furthermore, if there is enough evidence in the record indicating that the Henderson inference cannot be drawn, or that even if it can be drawn other factors indicate that the plea may not have been made with knowledge, then any state court’s reliance on Henderson would not be fairly supported by the record.