498
Souter, J., dissenting
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Blackmun and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.
The Court answers a difficult constitutional question that I believe the underlying statute does not pose. Because in my judgment the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, 18 U. S. C. § 924(e) (ACCA), does not authorize sentence enhancement based on prior convictions that a defendant can show at sentencing to have been unlawfully obtained, I respectfully dissent.
I
A
The ACCA mandatory minimum sentence applies to defendants with "three previous convictions . . . for a violent felony or a serious drug offense." 18 U. S. C. § 924(e). The Court construes "convictio[n]" to refer to the "fact of the conviction," ante, at 491 (emphasis in original), and concludes that "Congress did not intend to permit collateral attacks [during sentencing] on prior convictions under § 924(e)," ante, at 493.1 This interpretation of the ACCA will come as a surprise to the Courts of Appeals, which (with the one exception of the court below) have understood "convictio[n]" in the ACCA to mean "lawful conviction," and have permitted defendants to show at sentencing that a prior conviction offered for enhancement was unconstitutionally obtained, whether as violative of the right to have appointed counsel, see Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), the right to effective assistance of counsel, see Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), the right against conviction based on an unknowing or involuntary guilty plea, see Boykin v.
1 The Court's opinion makes clear that it uses the phrase "collateral attack" to refer to an attack during sentencing. See, e. g., ante, at 487 ("We granted certiorari to determine whether a defendant in a federal sentencing proceeding may collaterally attack the validity of previous state convictions that are used to enhance his sentence under the ACCA").
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