Baldasar v. Illinois

In Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367 (1979), the Court held that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is constitutionally valid if the offender is not incarcerated. This case presents the question whether such a conviction may be used under an enhanced penalty statute to convert a subsequent misdemeanor into a felony with a prison term.

Under Illinois law, theft “not from the person” of property worth less than $150 is a misdemeanor punishable by not more than a year of imprisonment and a fine of not more than $1,000. Ill. Rey. Stat., ch. 38, §§ 16-1 (e)(1), 1005-8-3 (a) (1), 1005-9-1 (a)(2) (1975). A second conviction for the same offense, however, may be treated as a felony with a prison term of one to three years. § 1005-8-1 (b) (5).

Thomas Baldasar, the petitioner, was convicted of misdemeanor theft in Cook County Circuit Court in May 1975. The record of that proceeding indicates that he was not represented by a lawyer and did not formally waive any right to counsel. Baldasar was fined $159 and sentenced to one year of probation. In November 1975 the State charged him with stealing a shower head worth $29 from a department store. The case was tried to a jury in Du Page County Circuit Court in August 1976. The prosecution introduced evidence of the prior conviction and asked that Baldasar be punished as a felon under the Illinois enhancement statute. Defense counsel objected to the admission of the 1975 conviction. She argued unsuccessfully that because Baldasar had not been represented by a lawyer at the first proceeding, the conviction was too unreliable to support enhancement of the second misdemeanor. App. 7-9. The jury returned a guilty verdict on the felony charge, and Baldasar was sentenced to prison for one to three years.

The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed by a divided vote. It emphasized that when the right to counsel in misdemeanor cases was recognized in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972), this Court confined that right to prosecutions that “ 'end up in the actual deprivation of a person’s liberty.’ ” 52 Ill. App. 3d 305, 307, 367 N. E. 2d 459, 462 (1977), quoting Argersinger, supra, at 40. The Illinois court rejected petitioner’s argument that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments prevented the imposition of the enhanced prison term. “The fact is,” the court wrote, “that [Baldasar] was sentenced to imprisonment for his second theft conviction only and not, as he suggests, sentenced again, and this time to imprisonment, for the first theft conviction.” 52 Ill. App. 3d, at 310, 367 N. E. 2d, at 463. The Supreme Court of Illinois denied leave to appeal, and we granted certiorari. 440 U. S. 956 (1979).

For the reasons stated in the concurring opinions, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District, for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.