Cite as: 535 U. S. 654 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
(hereinafter Fried Brief). We conclude that Shelton's case is not properly bracketed with those dispositions.
Nichols presented the question whether the Sixth Amendment barred consideration of a defendant's prior uncounseled misdemeanor conviction in determining his sentence for a subsequent felony offense. 511 U. S., at 740. Nichols pleaded guilty to federal felony drug charges. Several years earlier, unrepresented by counsel, he was fined but not incarcerated for the state misdemeanor of driving under the influence (DUI). Including the DUI conviction in the federal Sentencing Guidelines calculation allowed the trial court to impose a sentence for the felony drug conviction "25 months longer than if the misdemeanor conviction had not been considered." Id., at 741. We upheld this result, concluding that "an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction, valid under Scott because no prison term was imposed, is also valid when used to enhance punishment at a subsequent conviction." Id., at 749. In Gagnon, the question was whether the defendant, who was placed on probation pursuant to a suspended sentence for armed robbery, had a due process right to representation by appointed counsel at a probation revocation hearing. 411 U. S., at 783. We held that counsel was not invariably required in parole or probation revocation proceedings; we directed, instead, a "case-by-case approach" turning on the character of the issues involved. Id., at 788-791.
Considered together, amicus contends, Nichols and Gagnon establish this principle: Sequential proceedings must be analyzed separately for Sixth Amendment purposes, Fried Brief 11-18, and only those proceedings "result[ing] in immediate actual imprisonment" trigger the right to state-appointed counsel, id., at 13 (emphasis added). Thus, the defendant in Nichols had no right to appointed counsel in the DUI proceeding because he was not immediately imprisoned at the conclusion of that proceeding. The uncounseled DUI, valid when imposed, did not later become invalid be-
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