00-1214 Alabama v. Shelton

By: dmc-admin//May 28, 2002//

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The Sixth Amendment does not permit activation of a suspended sentence upon an indigent defendant’s violation of the terms of his probation where the State did not provide him counsel during the prosecution of the offense for which he is imprisoned. A suspended sentence is a prison term imposed for the offense of conviction. Once the prison term is triggered, the defendant is incarcerated not for the probation violation, but for the underlying offense. The uncounseled conviction at that point “result[s] in imprisonment,” Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738, 746; it “end[s] up in the actual deprivation of a person’s liberty,” Argersinger, 407 U.S., at 40. This is precisely what the Sixth Amendment, as interpreted in Argersinger and Scott, does not allow.

Affirmed.

Local effect:

The decision has no effect in Wisconsin, where Shelton would have been provided counsel pursuant to sec. 967.06.

Ginsburg, J.; Scalia, J., dissenting.

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