State v. Martin

427 So. 2d 1182
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMarch 9, 1983
Docket82-KA-0581
StatusPublished
Cited by101 cases

This text of 427 So. 2d 1182 (State v. Martin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Martin, 427 So. 2d 1182 (La. 1983).

Opinion

427 So.2d 1182 (1983)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Wendell MARTIN.

No. 82-KA-0581.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

February 23, 1983.
Dissenting Opinion March 9, 1983.

*1183 William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., John Craft, William R. Campbell, Jr., Jeffrey Bassett, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.

John Reed, Glass & Reed, New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.

LEMMON, Justice.

The principal issue in this appeal relates to defendant's sentence as a multiple offender.[1]

*1184 I.

Defendant was surprised by New Orleans police in the act of burglary of a business place. The police apprehended defendant as he attempted to escape in his vehicle. Cash and other items stolen in the burglary were found in his automobile. Arresting officers found scotch tape on defendant's fingers (presumably to prevent leaving fingerprints at the scene of the crime).

At defendant's trial for simple burglary, defense counsel endeavored to raise an inference that defendant was "framed" by the police. A six-member jury rejected defendant's theory and found him guilty as charged. The district attorney filed a multiple offender bill, charging that defendant had previously been convicted of manslaughter. He was subsequently sentenced as a second offender to 15 years imprisonment at hard labor.

II.

Defendant challenges the sentence based on two contentions, both of which are raised for the first time on appeal. He first contends that the trial court erred in permitting him at the sentencing hearing on the multiple offender bill to confess in open court that he was the same individual who had previously been convicted and sentenced for manslaughter without first duly cautioning him as to his rights.

La.R.S. 15:529.1 provides that the court may sentence a defendant as an habitual offender "[i]f the judge finds that [defendant] has been convicted of a prior felony ..., or if [defendant] acknowledges or confesses in open court, after being duly cautioned as to his rights, that he has been so convicted ...."[2] (Emphasis supplied.) The colloquy at the sentencing hearing in this case clearly reveals that defendant was represented by counsel and freely admitted, upon inquiry by the judge, that he was the same Wendell Martin who had previously been convicted of manslaughter. Furthermore, the colloquy also establishes that the judge, prior to defendant's in-court admission, advised defendant of his right to a "formal hearing" and of his right to require the state to prove the issue of identity.[3] Inasmuch as the other portions of the multiple offender statute make it evident that *1185 those are the "rights" of which the defendant should be cautioned, we conclude that defendant was adequately cautioned of his rights, as required by the statute.[4]

Defendant contends, however, that due process requires the judge additionally to inform the defendant of the consequences of his admission in terms of a more severe penalty exposure.

Defendant, represented by counsel, voluntarily acknowledged in open court that he was the same person who had been previously convicted. There is no reason to believe (and defendant does not suggest) that the admission was either unreliable or involuntary. Moreover, neither the defendant nor his attorney objected to or questioned the propriety of the judge's immediate pronouncement of an enhanced sentence.

Neither the pertinent statute nor any constitutional principle requires that the trial court discuss the consequences on the record before accepting the defendant's voluntary, counseled admission of identity.[5] Multiple offender proceedings simply should not be equated (at least for purposes of determining the validity of an admission) to trials of guilt or innocence.[6] It would not insure that such admissions are reliable or otherwise serve the administration of justice for this court, under its supervisory jurisdiction, to adopt such a prophylactic rule which is not required by the Legislature.[7] Therefore, we decline to set aside the multiple offender sentence because defendant's identity admission was invalid.

*1186 III.

Defendant also contends that the multiple offender sentence in this case must be set aside because the minute entry of the guilty plea to manslaughter in the certified copy of the predicate felony conviction fails to reflect that defendant was represented by counsel.

When the state offered the record of the prior conviction during the multiple offender proceedings in the trial court, defense counsel did not object to the record on any basis. (Nor does defendant allege in this appeal that the manslaughter conviction was obtained by a guilty plea in absence of counsel.[8]) The issue therefore is simply whether this court will set aside the multiple offender sentence because the unobjected-to certified copy of the conviction did not contain a minute entry referring to the presence of counsel.

There is no doubt that a guilty plea obtained in violation of defendant's right to counsel cannot be used to enhance a sentence. Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109, 88 S.Ct. 258, 19 L.Ed.2d 319 (1967). See also United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 92 S.Ct. 589, 30 L.Ed.2d 592 (1972). As stated in Burgett, an uncounseled plea would cause defendant to "suffer anew" from the earlier violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. Therefore, a defendant who has been sentenced as a multiple offender on the basis of a prior uncounseled plea in the underlying conviction can have the multiple offender sentence set aside in a postconviction proceeding. See La.C.Cr.P. Art. 930.3. However, the question in this case is whether defendant can raise on appeal, rather than by postconviction application, the question of whether he was represented by counsel at the earlier plea when defendant did not object in the trial court to the evidence of the prior conviction.

The proper approach, when there is no objection at the multiple offender hearing to the certified copy of the prior conviction based on the absence of a minute entry reference to counsel's presence, is to relegate the defendant to an application for postconviction relief. No useful purpose would be served to address the issue raised for the first time on appeal and to set aside a multiple offender sentence (which was based on an apparently valid prior conviction obtained by a voluntary guilty plea), if counsel was in fact present at the earlier plea and the minute entry in the present record simply failed to reflect the presence. A defendant, who failed to object to that possible deficiency at a time when the problem could have been easily resolved, has an adequate remedy by postconviction application to show any possible violation of his Sixth Amendment rights.

In State v. Holden, 375 So.2d 1372 (La.1979), this court held that a defendant could not complain for the first time on appeal that the record did not reflect compliance with the "three-right articulation rule" at the guilty plea on the prior felony. By way of dicta, the author of the Holden

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Bluebook (online)
427 So. 2d 1182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-martin-la-1983.