Court Opinion

ID: 9657234
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:17:58.133226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:42.390063
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice, specially
concurring.
I agree with the majority that the two prior convictions from the Stark County court and the Montana court are clearly “counseled” convictions and were thus properly relied upon for enhancement purposes. As to the third prior conviction, namely, the city of Dickinson municipal court conviction, I believe there is insufficient evidence of representation of counsel or waiver of counsel, making that conviction unavailable to enhance the punishment for Haverluk’s latest conviction.
The majority recognizes that the criminal judgment from the municipal court of Dickinson does not indicate that defendant was represented by counsel. The majority then rationalizes away that defect by relying on an “indication in the documents that Haverluk had the benefit of legal counsel.” The documents referred to are a notice of change of hearing dated February 1, 1982, which is addressed to an individual designated as the defendant’s attorney, and a letter from the city attorney to the trial judge, dated April 8, 1982, which confirms the city attorney’s conversation with the court and with the individual described as defendant’s attorney regarding the negotiated plea agreement. The question *876presented is whether the notice and letter constitute sufficient evidence that defendant was represented by counsel when he ultimately pleaded guilty on April 8, 1982 in Dickinson municipal court to driving under the influence. In my view, they do not.
Because of the importance of the constitutional right to counsel in a criminal proceeding, the State should be required to establish more than a mere “indication" of representation by an attorney. We should not be left to look to correspondence and documents relating to pre-hearing matters in order to divine whether an attorney actually represented the defendant when he pleaded guilty to a crime. It is a simple matter to include in the criminal judgment that the defendant was represented by counsel, if, indeed, he was.
Because the criminal judgment in the Dickinson municipal court case does not establish that defendant was represented by counsel at the guilty plea proceeding, I believe the record is silent as to that critical fact. A silent record is insufficient to overcome the presumption that an uncounseled conviction is void for enhancement purposes. See State v. Orr, 375 N.W.2d 171 (N.D.1985). Nor did the State prove waiver of counsel. I would thus hold that the Dickinson municipal court conviction cannot be used to enhance the penalty for the subsequent conviction for driving under the influence.
However, even without considering the prior Dickinson municipal court conviction, the defendant’s present conviction is still a class A misdemeanor under NDCC § 39-08-01(2) because it is his third conviction for driving under the influence within a five-year period.
I therefore concur In the affirmance.