State v. Veikoso, 25182.

Citation102 Haw. 219,74 P.3d 575
Decision Date11 August 2003
Docket NumberNo. 25182.,25182.
PartiesSTATE of Hawai'i, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Amanaki L. VEIKOSO, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtSupreme Court of Hawai'i

Carrie Ann Y. Shirota, Deputy Public Defender, on the briefs, for defendant-appellant.

Loren J. Thomas, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, on the briefs, for plaintiff-appellee.

MOON, C.J., LEVINSON, and NAKAYAMA, JJ.; Circuit Judge SIMMS, Assigned by Reason of Vacancy; and ACOBA, J., Concurring Separately.

Opinion of the Court by MOON, C.J.

Defendant-appellant Amanaki L. Veikoso (Appellant) appeals from the May 29, 2002 judgment of conviction and sentence of the Circuit Court for the First Circuit, the Honorable Michael A. Town presiding, adjudging him guilty of habitually driving under the influence (DUI) of intoxicating liquor, in violation of Hawai'i Revised Statutes (HRS) § 291-4.4 (Supp.2000) [hereinafter, the habitual DUI charge]. On appeal, Appellant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the habitual DUI charge after he had offered evidence in support of his allegation that the predicate DUI convictions were constitutionally invalid. The prosecution, relying on the judgment of this court announced in State v. Shimabukuro, 100 Hawai'i 324, 60 P.3d 274 (2002), concedes that dismissal of the habitual DUI charge was appropriate. Pursuant to State v. Hoang, 93 Hawai'i 333, 336, 3 P.3d 499, 502 (prosecution's confession of error not binding on an appellate court), cert. denied, 94 Hawai'i 329, 13 P.3d 854 (2000), and based on our independent examination of the record, we hold that dismissal is not warranted and affirm Appellant's conviction.

I. BACKGROUND

On May 10, 2000, Appellant was charged with habitual DUI.1 HRS § 291-4.42 provided in relevant part that:

(a) A person commits the offense of [habitual DUI] ... if, during a ten-year period the person has been convicted three or more times for a [DUI] offense; and

(1) The person operates or assumes actual physical control of the operation of any vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor[.]

Id. In order to meet its burden of proof, the prosecution relied on, inter alia, four prior DUI convictions entered against Appellant within the relevant time period.

On April 10, 2001, Appellant filed a "Motion to Strike Prior Convictions for Sentencing Purposes and Dismiss Count I [the habitual DUI charge]" [hereinafter, motion to dismiss]. Appellant's purpose in filing the motion to dismiss was to collaterally attack the validity of three of his underlying DUI convictions and preclude the prosecution from using them to prove the habitual DUI charge.3

Following a hearing on the matter, the trial court found that three of Appellant's prior DUI convictions were obtained in violation of Hawai'i Rules of Penal Procedure (HRPP) Rule 11 and constitutional standards intended to ensure that a guilty plea is knowing and voluntary.4 The trial court, however, denied the motion to dismiss after determining that the continued validity of the predicate prior convictions was irrelevant to establish culpability for the habitual DUI charge.5

On November 26, 2001, Appellant entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal the trial court's denial of his motion to dismiss. On May 29, 2002, Appellant was sentenced to five years of probation with, inter alia, the following conditions: (1) six months of imprisonment as to Count I; (2) thirty days of imprisonment as to Count II, to be served concurrently; and (3) payment of a $100 Crime Victim Compensation fee. On June 26, 2002, Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW
A. Conclusions of Law

A trial court's conclusions of law are reviewed de novo. State v. Poohina, 97 Hawai'i 505, 508, 40 P.3d 907, 910 (2002)

. "Under this standard, [the appellate court] examine[s] the facts and answer[s] the question without being required to give any weight to the trial court's answer to it. Thus, a conclusion of law is not binding upon the appellate court and is freely reviewable for its correctness." Id. (quoting Chun v. Board of Trustees of Employees' Retirement Sys., 92 Hawai'i 432, 438-39, 992 P.2d 127, 133-34 (2000)) (citations, internal quotations marks, brackets, ellipsis omitted).

B. Statutory Interpretation

This court reviews a circuit court's interpretation of a statute de novo. State v. Entrekin, 98 Hawai'i 221, 225, 47 P.3d 336, 340 (2002)

.

C. Confession of Error

In "confession of error" cases, appellate courts have an independent duty "first to ascertain that the confession of error is supported by the record and well-founded in law and second to determine that such error is properly preserved and prejudicial." Hoang, 93 Hawai'i at 336,3 P.3d at 502 (internal quotation marks, citations, brackets, ellipsis omitted). In other words, "a confession of error by the prosecution is not binding upon an appellate court, nor may a conviction be reversed on the strength of the prosecutor's official action alone." Id. (internal quotation marks, citation, ellipsis, and brackets omitted).

III. DISCUSSION

Appellant contends that the trial court erred when it failed to dismiss the habitual DUI charge because three of his prior DUI convictions were constitutionally invalid and, therefore, could not serve as the predicate for convicting him under HRS § 291-4.4.

A. Shimabukuro Is Not Controlling.

As a preliminary matter, we address the prosecution's reliance on Shimabukuro for its conclusion that the judgment of the court announced in that case compelled dismissal. The prosecution viewed Shimabukuro as establishing that "the requisite prior DUI convictions [necessary to sustain a habitual DUI charge] must be valid." The prosecution necessarily construed Shimabukuro as permitting a defendant to collaterally attack the constitutional "validity" of his or her prior DUI convictions and as barring the use of any convictions whose constitutional validity was subsequently deemed questionable. Thus, because the trial court had entertained Appellant's collateral attack on three of his prior DUI convictions and made findings that impeached the constitutional validity of Appellant's earlier guilty pleas, the prosecution concluded that Appellant's habitual DUI conviction had to be vacated and the case remanded for entry of a judgment of guilt as to the DUI included offense. The prosecution's application of Shimabukuro, however, is flawed.

Initially, it must be emphasized that Shimabukuro produced no majority opinion and, therefore, the precedential value of the opinion announcing the judgment of the court is limited.6 Cf. University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston v. York, 871 S.W.2d 175, 176-77 (Tex.1994)

(citing Linda Novak, Note, The Precedential Value of Supreme Court Plurality Decisions, 80 Colum. L.Rev. 756, 756-58 and 779 (1987)); see also LaRouche v. Fowler, 77 F.Supp.2d 80, 84 (D.C.Cir.1999) (noting the difficulties of treating as binding precedent a court ruling that produces no majority opinion). In addition, it must be noted that Shimabukuro did not require this court to reach a consensus as to whether a defendant must be permitted to collaterally attack prior DUI convictions within the context of trial proceedings on a subsequent DUI offense.

Central to the judgment announced in Shimabukuro, which also involved a prosecution under HRS § 291-4.4, was the fact that the defendant in that case (Shimabukuro) had succeeded in having one of his prior convictions vacated by the rendering court prior to entering his conditional guilty plea. Id. at 331, 60 P.3d at 281 (Levinson, J., concurring separately and joined by Moon, C.J.). A majority of this court agreed, albeit for different reasons, that the vacated conviction could not be used to establish culpability under HRS § 291-4.4. See id. at 327-28, 60 P.3d at 277-78 (Acoba, J., announcing the judgment of the court) (construing HRS § 291-4.4 as requiring that the predicate DUI convictions be "valid" and noting that, because "one of [d]efendant's three prior convictions was vacated on the ground that it was unconstitutionally obtained[,]" the defendant lacked the requisite number of convictions) (emphasis added); id. at 331 n. 5, 60 P.3d at 281 n. 5 (Levinson, J., concurring separately and joined by Moon, C.J.) ("For purposes of my analysis, it makes no difference whether the vacated conviction was, in the first instance, `unconstitutionally obtained' or defective for some other reason. The inescapable fact is that, at the time he was sentenced as a `habitual' DUI offender, Shimabukuro had not been convicted three or more times for a [DUI] offense." (Underscored emphasis added.) (Bold emphasis in original.)). Insofar as none of Appellant's prior DUI convictions in the present case had been vacated at the time he pled guilty, Shimabukuro is not controlling.

B. The Prior DUI Convictions Satisfied The Requirements Of HRS § 291-4.4.

The plain language of HRS § 291-4.4 indicates that, to obtain a conviction on a habitual DUI charge, the prosecution must prove that a defendant, arrested for a DUI offense, "has been convicted three or more times for a [DUI] offense" within the ten-year period prior to that arrest. In the absence of a statutory definition or any legislative history to suggest otherwise, this court should construe the words of a statute according to their "most known and usual signification." HRS § 1-14. We, therefore, hold that the term "conviction," as used in HRS § 291-4.4, means any judgment or plea that has not been expunged by pardon, reversed, or set aside at the time a defendant is found guilty of the habitual DUI charge. See Black's Law Dictionary, 333-34 (6th ed.1990) (providing a general definition of the term "conviction" as it is commonly understood). It is undisputed that Appellant's four prior DUI convictions had not been expunged, reversed, or set aside at the time he pled guilty and, therefore, satisfied the requirements...

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