State v. Saunders
| Decision Date | 16 July 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-0271.,01-0271. |
| Citation | 649 N.W.2d 263,255 Wis.2d 589,2002 WI 107 |
| Parties | STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent-Petitioner, v. Patrick A. SAUNDERS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
For the plaintiff-respondent-petitioner the cause was argued by William L. Gansner, assistant attorney general, with whom on the briefs was James E. Doyle, attorney general.
For the defendant-appellant there was a brief by Beth Ermatinger Hanan and Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, S.C., Milwaukee, and oral argument by Beth Ermatinger Hanan.
¶ 1.
This is a review of an unpublished decision of the court of appeals, which reversed an order of the Kenosha County Circuit Court, Bruce E. Schroeder, Judge, denying defendant Patrick A. Saunders' motion for post-conviction relief.2 Saunders claimed that the State failed to prove his status as a repeat offender for sentence enhancement purposes. He requested commutation of that portion of his prison sentence based on his status as a habitual criminal, to eliminate the alleged improper sentence enhancement. The court of appeals granted Saunders' request for relief, and the State appealed.
¶ 2. This case requires the court to determine how prior convictions are "proved by the state" under Wis. Stat. § 973.12(1) (1999-2000)3 for sentence enhancement. The question presented is whether a copy of a prior judgment of conviction must be certified when the state uses it to prove a defendant's status as a repeat offender for sentence enhancement purposes. To answer this question, we must also address the issue of whether the rules of evidence formally apply at presentence proceedings in which the state attempts to prove prior convictions for sentence enhancement purposes under Wis. Stat. § 939.62.
¶ 3. We hold that Wis. Stat. § 973.12(1) does not require the state to use certified copies of prior judgments of conviction as the basis for enhanced penalties under Wis. Stat. § 939.62. We conclude that the rules of evidence do not apply to documents offered during a circuit court's presentence determination of whether a qualifying prior conviction exists.4 Use of an uncertified copy of a prior judgment of conviction may be an acceptable means of proving that a convicted defendant holds the status of a habitual criminal under § 939.62, so long as the state proves the existence of qualifying prior convictions beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals.
¶ 4. The facts of this case are not in dispute. In March 1993 Patrick A. Saunders was charged in Kenosha County with five criminal offenses, including two counts of armed burglary for crimes committed in February 1993.5 In the information, the State also alleged that Saunders was a repeat offender, pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 939.62, based on his March 1991 conviction for burglary, entered in Rock County Circuit Court.6 ¶ 5. In August 1993 a jury found Saunders guilty of all five counts. Immediately after excusing the jury, the circuit court engaged in a colloquy with the prosecutor and Saunders' trial counsel. Saunders was present at this colloquy. The court noted that a copy of the 1991 Rock County judgment of conviction was located in the court file and asked if there were any dispute that the judgment of conviction was present in the court file. Saunders' counsel replied that there was no dispute as to the file containing this document, nor was there a dispute as to the fact of Saunders' prior conviction in 1991. Accordingly, the court made a finding that Saunders was a repeat offender under § 939.62. The actual language used in this exchange was as follows:
¶ 6. After a sentencing hearing on October 7, 1993,7 the court sentenced Saunders to sixty years in prison, thirty years on each of the two burglary counts.8 Each sentence consisted of the maximum twenty years allowable under the state's then-current armed burglary statutes, see Wis. Stat. §§ 943.10(1)(a) and (2)(a); 939.50(3)(b) (1991-92), and the maximum ten years allowable under the repeater statute, see Wis. Stat. § 939.62(1)(c) (1991-92). Hence, one-third of each sentence was based on habitual criminality sentence enhancements.
¶ 7. After two unsuccessful motions for postconviction relief,9 Saunders eventually filed a third motion in January 2001 under Wis. Stat. § 974.06.10 He contended that the State failed to satisfy the proof requirements of Wis. Stat. § 973.12 to permit an enhanced sentence under § 939.62. Saunders asserted that he never personally admitted to the existence of a prior conviction during the sentencing proceedings and that the State failed to independently prove his prior Rock County conviction. Consequently, he argued, the repeater-enhanced portions of his sentence were in excess of that permitted by law and must be voided under Wis. Stat. § 973.13.11
¶ 8. The circuit court issued an order, dated January 10, 2001, denying this request. Saunders appealed. The court of appeals summarily reversed the circuit court's order, State v. Saunders, No. 01-0271, unpublished order (Wis. Ct. App. Aug. 29, 2001), concluding that the State had failed to meet its burden of proving Saunders' prior conviction for repeater purposes. Id. at 1. The court rejected each of the State's three arguments that it had established adequate proof of Saunders' prior conviction.
¶ 9. First, the court of appeals gave no weight to the State's use of an uncertified copy of the 1991 Rock County judgment of conviction. The court concluded that, although no dispute existed as to the authenticity of the copy, the uncertified copy was inadequate. The court noted the State's failure to cite any Wisconsin case permitting proof of a conviction by a copy other than a certified copy of a judgment of conviction. Id. at 2. It also looked to language in a prior court of appeals decision recognizing certified copies as the "best evidence" of the existence of prior convictions. Id. (quoting State v. Flowers, 221 Wis. 2d 20, 32, 586 N.W.2d 175 (Ct. App. 1998)).
¶ 10. Second, the court concluded that the State was mistaken in attempting to use Saunders' admissions of his prior convictions during his impeachment at trial, as proof of these prior convictions at sentencing. Id. The court noted that prior convictions must be proved at sentencing, not during trial. Id. (citing State v. Koeppen, 195 Wis. 2d 117, 129-30, 536 N.W.2d 386 (Ct. App. 1995)). Furthermore, these admissions did not relate directly to Saunders' repeater status and were not made to the level of detail required for an effective admission under Wis. Stat. § 973.12(1). Id. at 2-3.
¶ 11. Finally, the court held that the presentence investigation report (PSI) could not to serve as a source of the State's proof since it failed to make an explicit reference to a burglary conviction on March 22, 1991, the exact date of the Rock County conviction. Id. at 3. Without this detail, the court said, the PSI was inadequate for purposes of proving Saunders' prior conviction.
¶ 12. The court of appeals concluded that, with only this evidence of Saunders' prior conviction, the State failed in its proof under § 973.12(1). Id. The court remanded the action to the circuit court, instructing it to vacate that portion of Saunders' conviction that was based on his status as a repeater and to enter a new sentence based solely on the allowable sentence maximums for his underlying crimes. Id. ¶ 13. We granted the State's petition for review.
¶ 14. This case requires us to clarify the state's proof requirements for invoking the habitual criminality sentence enhancement provisions of Wis. Stat. § 939.62. More specifically, we must decide whether an uncertified copy of a judgment of conviction may serve as part of the proof of a defendant's qualifying prior conviction in the absence of a personal admission by the defendant.
[1]
¶ 15. The question of whether penalties based on a defendant's repeater status were properly applied involves the application of Wis. Stat. § 973.12(1) to a set of undisputed facts. This is a question of law to which we apply de novo review. State v. Liebnitz, 231 Wis. 2d 272, 283, 603 N.W.2d 208 (1999); State v. Campbell, 201 Wis. 2d 783, 788, 549 N.W.2d 501 (Ct. App. 1996).
¶ 16. Wisconsin Stat. § 939.62 is one of many statutory provisions that enhance a convicted criminal defendant's potential exposure to confinement.12 The section pertains to persons whom the legislature has dubbed "habitual criminals" or "repeaters." Wis. Stat. § 939.62.
¶ 17. A "repeater," for purposes of penalty enhancement under § 939.62, is a person who has been convicted of at least one felony or three misdemeanors in the five years preceding the crime for which he or she is being sentenced. Wis. Stat. § 939.62(2).13 In computing this five-year period, time spent by the defendant in actual confinement while serving a criminal sentence is excluded.14 Id.
¶ 18. The statute permits a court to increase the sentence for most crimes that allow imprisonment, provided the person being sentenced is a repeater under the law. Wis. Stat. § 939.62(1). The allowable increase in sentencing follows a formula based upon the maximum sentence available for the underlying crime. Wis. Stat. § 939.62(1)(a)-(c).15
¶ 19. Before sentence...
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