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State v. Deville7/2/2004
The state seeks review of a judgment in the district court granting defendant's motion to quash the bill of information charging him with third offense Driving While Intoxicated [D.W.I.] on grounds that one *690 of the prior convictions alleged in the bill, a guilty plea to driving under the influence in Mississippi in January 1998, failed to reflect a valid waiver of counsel, although defendant had signed a form at the time of the plea acknowledging that he had been advised of his right to counsel and waived that right. The court of appeal affirmed on grounds that the contemporaneous records of the guilty plea in Mississippi produced by the state at the hearing on the motion to quash did not show that the trial court "determine[d] on the record that the waiver [was] made knowingly and intelligently under the circumstances," taking into account such factors as "age, education, experience, background, competency, and conduct of the accused, as well as the nature, complexity, and seriousness of the charge." **2 State v. Deville, 03- 2436, p. 5 (La.App. 1st Cir.5/14/04), 879 So.2d 204, 207 (citation omitted)(McClendon, J., dissenting). Because we agree with the dissenting views of Judge McClendon that the state's evidence revealed a presumptively valid conviction as to which the defendant offered no countervailing evidence at the hearing on the motion to quash, we grant the state's writ and reverse the rulings below.
This Court has long subscribed to the view that uncounseled misdemeanor D.W.I. convictions may not serve as the predicate for enhancement of a subsequent D.W.I. offense in the absence of a valid waiver of counsel. State v. Deroche, 96-1376, p. 2 (La.11/8/96), 682 So.2d 1251, 1252; State v. Pugh, 588 So.2d 702 (La.1991); State v. Wiggins, 399 So.2d 206, 207-08 (La.1981); State ex rel. Bishop v. Blackburn, 384 So.2d 406, 408 (La.1980); City of Monroe v. Fincher, 305 So.2d 108, 109-10 (La.1974). At least with respect to guilty pleas taken in Louisiana, this rule applies without regard to whether the defendant actually served a term of imprisonment for the prior offense. An accused in this state has the constitutional right to counsel as a matter of La. Const. art. I, § 13 in any case in which he or she is "charged with an offense punishable by imprisonment," without regard to whether imprisonment is actually imposed. State v. Stevison, 97-3122, p. 1 (La.10/30/98), 721 So.2d 843, 844. In this respect, Louisiana law provides broader protection than the Sixth Amendment requires. Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738, 747, 114 S.Ct. 1921, 1927, 128 L.Ed.2d 745 (1994)(prior uncounseled misdemeanor convictions which did not result in actual imprisonment may serve to enhance sentence upon conviction for a subsequent offense even though the enhanced sentence entails imprisonment)(overruling Baldasar v. Illinois, 446 U.S. 222, 100 S.Ct. 1585, 64 L.Ed.2d 169 (1980)); see also **3 Scott v. Illinois, 440 U.S. 367, 99 S.Ct. 1158, 59 L.Ed.2d 383 (1979)(Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not attach at trial of a misdemeanor offense which does not result in actual imprisonment).
The documents produced by the state at the hearing on the motion to quash indicate that the defendant received a fine only after pleading guilty in the Mississippi court. The decisions of the trial court and the court of appeal in the present case therefore rest on the premise that the state was nevertheless required to show a valid waiver of counsel although neither the Sixth Amendment nor the jurisdiction in which defendant entered his plea would accord him the same measure of protection. [FN1] We need not address that underlying assumption because the state's documents were in fact sufficient to discharge any burden it may have had with respect
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