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State v. Dumas12/15/1998
g to jail or prison, and so that he is treated fairly by the prosecution." Id. at 34, 2011 (emphasis added).
The right to counsel and the other procedural protections afforded criminal defendants are generally triggered by the threat of incarceration; for example, the right to a jury trial is not invoked unless the defendant may face more than six months in prison. Frank v. United States, 395 U.S. 147, 150, 89 S. Ct. 1503, 1506 (1969). Because the right to counsel may be invoked whenever the defendant faces the prospect of incarceration, we conclude that if the right to counsel is not violated, it is unlikely other procedural rights are violated either. Thus, we need not address other procedural rights raised by respondent, and alluded to but not relied on by the district court.
Minnesota courts have interpreted the Minnesota Constitution more broadly than the United States Constitution regarding the right to counsel. State v. Nordstrom, 331 N.W.2d 901, 904-05 (Minn. 1983). In State v. Borst, the Minnesota Supreme Court extended the right to counsel in Minnesota beyond gross misdemeanors and felonies to any criminal matter in which the accused stood a substantial chance of facing incarceration. 278 Minn. 388, 397, 154 N.W.2d 888, 894 (1967). In so doing, the court reasoned that it is the consequences of conviction that are important, not the classification of the offense. Id. at 399, 154 N.W.2d at 895.
Because the right to counsel under the Minnesota Constitution is more expansive than the right to counsel under the United States Constitution, we need not address the United States Constitution at length. If the statute is constitutional under the Minnesota Constitution, it is unlikely to run afoul of the United States Constitution. Moreover, if the statute is unconstitutional under the Minnesota Constitution, it makes no difference whether the statute is constitutional under the United States Constitution.
While Minnesota courts have not addressed the right to counsel in a case involving enhancement of a present crime because of the outcome of a prior civil proceeding, several Minnesota cases have addressed enhancement issues where both the prior and subsequent offenses were criminal in nature. In Nordstrom, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that a criminal conviction in which the defendant was not represented by counsel could not be used to enhance a subsequent DWI offense to a gross misdemeanor if the right to counsel was not properly waived. 331 N.W.2d at 905. The court was concerned "that an accused person may wind up in jail without the assistance of counsel to present what defense he may have * * *." Id. Respondent contends that Nordstrom controls the result here. We disagree.
Initially, we note that the continuing vitality of Nordstrom may be subject to question. The Nordstrom court relied in part on the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court in Baldasar v. Illinois, 446 U.S. 222, 100 S. Ct. 1585 (1980). Baldasar, however, has been overruled by Nichols v. U.S., 511 U.S. 738, 748, 114 S. Ct. 1921, 1928 (1994). Because the Minnesota Supreme Court has not addressed Nordstrom since Nichols was decided, we assume for purposes of our analysis that Nordstrom continues to represent the law in Minnesota.
We must determine the reach of Nordstrom. In Nordstrom, the prior conviction the state wanted to use to enhance the defendant's subsequent offense into a misdemeanor was obtained in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights: the defendant was not represented by counsel and did not waive his right to counsel on the record when the prior criminal conviction was obtained. 331 N.W.2d at 903. Thus, the issue here is whether Nordstrom p
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