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State v. Deville5/14/2004
Defendant, Donald Deville, was charged by bill of information with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, third offense, a violation of La. R.S. 14:98D. Defendant entered a plea of not guilty and filed a motion to quash the bill of information on the basis that one of the predicate offenses was deficient. The trial court granted the motion to quash. The state appeals. For the following reasons the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
FACTS
On March 22, 2002, Sergeant James Sullivan of the Zachary Police Department initiated a traffic stop of defendant's vehicle. Sgt. Sullivan had observed defendant driving erratically. After defendant exited his vehicle, Sgt. Sullivan observed defendant staggering, slurring his speech, and swaying. The officer also noted a strong odor of alcohol on defendant's breath. After defendant performed poorly on a field sobriety test, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI). Defendant was transported to the Zachary Police Department where he consented to an Intoxilizyer test, which indicated a blood alcohol level concentration of .223 grams percent.
Defendant was charged by bill of information with DWI, third offense. In support of the charge of DWI, third offense, the state presented evidence of two predicate offenses. Evidence of the first predicate offense was a minute entry reflecting a 1995 guilty plea to DWI first offense in Baton Rouge City Court under docket number 05-95-78. The second predicate offense was a guilty plea to DWI first offense from Amite County, Mississippi, which was entered on January 14, 1998. As evidence of defendant's second offense, the state introduced an abstract of the court record indicating defendant's conviction; a certified copy of the criminal affidavit and breath test; and a certified copy of a waiver of the right to be represented by an attorney.
Defendant filed a motion to quash the bill of information. In his motion to quash, defendant argued that the prior conviction for DWI from Amite County, Mississippi was deficient in that the evidence of this conviction did not indicate defendant's guilty plea was made with a knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights. At the hearing on the motion to quash, defendant did not present any evidence. During the hearing, the trial court questioned the fact that the state did not introduce any evidence to show defendant was informed of, and waived, his Boykin rights in conjunction with his guilty plea in Mississippi. The trial court granted defendant's motion to quash because there was no showing that there was a knowing and intelligent waiver of rights and no proof defendant was informed of his Boykin rights.
The state appeals, arguing that the trial court erred when it failed to apply a presumption of regularity to court documents maintaining defendant's waiver of counsel during a plea of guilty to a predicate offense DWI.
ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR
The state argues that under State v. Carlos, 98-1366 (La.7/7/99), 738 So.2d 556 and State v. Zachary, 01-3191 (La.10/25/02), 829 So.2d 405 (per curiam), it only needed to prove the fact of conviction and that defendant waived counsel at the time he entered his plea in order to use a prior guilty plea to establish a predicate offense under the DWI statute. In State v. Carlos, the Louisiana Supreme Court extended the burden-shifting principles for habitual offender proceedings, set forth in State v. Shelton, 621 So.2d 769 (La.1993), to the recidivist portions of the DWI statute. Accordingly, when a defendant challenges the constitutionality of a predicate guilty plea, the state's initial burden is to show the existence of a guilty plea and that the defendant was represe
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