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Robinson v. State7/13/2005
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding precedent for any proposition of law.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT
No. 4992
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Stewart, Judges.
Robert W. Robinson III was charged with driving while intoxicated. This was his second offense, and he was sentenced to 20 days to serve - the mandatory minimum sentence for a second offender.
Robinson argues that the district court should not have considered his prior conviction in calculating his mandatory minimum sentence. He claims that his prior conviction is invalid because his waiver of counsel in that case was ineffective, and his plea was not knowing and voluntary. He also argues that the district court erred by denying his request for an evidentiary hearing to establish the invalidity of this prior conviction. We conclude that our decision in Brockway v. State bars Robinson from collaterally challenging his prior conviction on the ground that his plea was not knowing and voluntary. We do not reach Robinson's claim that he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing to collaterally challenge his conviction on the ground that he had not effectively waived his right to counsel, as Robinson presented no evidence to support that claim.
Facts and Proceedings
In 1988, Robinson pleaded no contest to misdemeanor driving while intoxicated. He was seventeen years old when he entered his plea.
In 2001, thirteen years later, Robinson was again charged with driving while intoxicated. Facing an enhanced minimum sentence as a second offender, he filed an application for post-conviction relief from his prior conviction, arguing that his waiver of counsel in the 1988 case was not knowing and intelligent, and that his plea was invalid. The district court summarily denied the petition. That decision was affirmed by the superior court, which held that Robinson's application was procedurally barred because it was filed outside the two-year statute of limitations for post-conviction relief. We denied Robinson's petition for hearing.
Robinson also collaterally challenged his 1988 conviction in the present case. Before trial, he moved to preclude the district court from enhancing his sentence based on his prior conviction, and asked for a hearing on that motion. Robinson made the same arguments raised in his post-conviction relief application. More specifically, he argued that the record of his 1988 change of plea hearing did not show that he had a full understanding of the benefits of counsel and of the hazards of self-representation when he waived his right to counsel. Robinson also argued that his no contest plea was involuntary because it was entered on his father's orders, and unknowing because he was not told that his conviction would increase the mandatory minimum sentence for a second offense more than ten years later. To support his claim that his plea was involuntary, Robinson submitted an unofficial transcript of a phone call between his father and his current attorney in which his father stated that he was the one "calling the shots" when Robinson entered his plea.
The State opposed this motion, arguing that it was premature because Robinson had not yet been convicted, that Robinson had not supported his claims with an appropriate affidavit, and that the challenge was barred by Brockway v. State. In his reply, Robinson attached an un-notarized affidavit stating that all factu
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