Court Opinion

ID: 9658790
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:14:04.69801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:59.506130
License: Public Domain

SMITH, P. J.,
(dissenting). It is my view that the judgment should be reversed. The state knew of the prior convictions and had prepared a supplemental information charging defendant with those convictions. Intending to prosecute defendant for an escape as an habitual criminal, the state’s attorney brought the defendant before the court. The true nature of the proceeding in which he was involved and that it threatened him with life imprisonment was concealed from defendant by the state until he had waived *483counsel and a jury trial, and his plea of guilty had been entered. Further, when defendant waived a jury trial it is very improbable that he sensed how reluctant a jury would be to cause a defendant to be imprisoned in the penitentiary because, while serving a thirty-day jail sentence, he hung around Brookings for two or three days instead of returning to the jail as he had promised. In these extreme circumstances such an understanding as defendant would have gained from the advice of informed counsel was essential to an intelligent waiver of his constitutional rights. In my opinion, -to stand by and permit an uncounseled defendant to enter a plea of guilty in such circumstances is so contrary to our concepts of justice as to amount to a denial of due process. Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 62 S.Ct. 1252, 86 L.Ed. 1595; Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268, 143 A.L.R. 435; State ex rel. Baker v. Jameson, 72 S.D. 638, 38 NW.2d 441; and State v. Sewell, 69 S.D. 494, 12 N.W.2d 198; and see State v. Delmonto, 110 Conn. 298, 147 A. 825; and Chandler v. Fretag, 348 U.S. 3, 75 S.Ct. 1, 99 L.Ed. 4.