Cite as: 511 U. S. 738 (1994)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
Thus, the animating concern in the Court's Sixth Amendment jurisprudence has been to ensure that no indigent is deprived of his liberty as a result of a proceeding in which he lacked the guiding hand of counsel. While the Court has grappled with, and sometimes divided over, extending this constitutional guarantee beyond convictions that lead to actual incarceration, it has never permitted, before now, an un-counseled conviction to serve as the basis for any jail time.
II
Although the Court now expressly overrules Baldasar v. Illinois, ante, at 748, it purports to adhere to Scott, describing its holding as a "logical consequence" of Scott, ante, at 746. This logic is not unassailable. To the contrary, as Justice Marshall stated in Baldasar, "a rule that held a conviction invalid for imposing a prison term directly, but valid for imposing a prison term collaterally, would be an illogical and unworkable deviation from our previous cases." 446 U. S., at 228-229 (concurring opinion). It is more logical, and more consistent with the reasoning in Scott, to hold that a conviction that is invalid for imposing a sentence for the offense itself remains invalid for increasing the term of imprisonment imposed for a subsequent conviction.
The Court skirts Scott's actual imprisonment standard by asserting that enhancement statutes "do not change the penalty imposed for the earlier conviction," ante, at 747, because they punish only the later offense. Although it is undeniable that recidivist statutes do not impose a second punishment for the first offense in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause, Moore v. Missouri, 159 U. S. 673, 677 (1895), it also is undeniable that Nichols' DUI conviction directly resulted in more than two years' imprisonment. In any event, our concern here is not with multiple punishments, but with reliability. Specifically, is a prior uncounseled misdemeanor
Amendment's guarantee of counsel, the actual imposition of imprisonment through an enhancement statute also requires the appointment of counsel.
757
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