744
Opinion of the Court
446 U. S., at 224. There were three different opinions supporting the result. Justice Stewart, who was joined by Justices Brennan and Stevens, stated simply that the defendant "was sentenced to an increased term of imprisonment only because he had been convicted in a previous prosecution in which he had not had the assistance of appointed counsel in his defense," and that "this prison sentence violated the constitutional rule of Scott . . . ." Ibid. Justice Marshall, who was also joined by Justices Brennan and Stevens, rested his opinion on the proposition that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is "not sufficiently reliable" to support imprisonment under Argersinger, and that it "does not become more reliable merely because the accused has been validly convicted of a subsequent offense." 446 U. S., at 227-228. Justice Blackmun, who provided the fifth vote, advanced the same rationale expressed in his dissent in Scott—that the Constitution requires appointment of counsel for an indigent defendant whenever he is charged with a "nonpetty" offense (an offense punishable by more than six months' imprisonment) or when the defendant is actually sentenced to imprisonment. 446 U. S., at 229-230. Under this rationale, Baldasar's prior misdemeanor conviction was invalid and could not be used for enhancement purposes because the initial misdemeanor was punishable by a prison term of more than six months.
Justice Powell authored the dissent, in which the remaining three Members of the Court joined. The dissent criticized the majority's holding as one that "undermines the rationale of Scott and Argersinger and leaves no coherent rationale in its place." Id., at 231. The dissent opined that the majority's result misapprehended the nature of enhancement statutes that "do not alter or enlarge a prior sentence," ignored the significance of the constitutional validity of the first conviction under Scott, and created a "hybrid" conviction, good for the punishment actually imposed but not available for sentence enhancement in a later prosecution.
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007