Thе defendant, Velvet Weeks, appeals the revocation of her suspended sentence. She argues that the Superior Court {Morrill, J.) erred in relying on a misdemeanor stalking conviction as the basis for revoking her suspended sentence from a prior witness tampering conviction because she was not provided with counsel during the proceedings on the stalking charge. She also challenges the constitutionality of the stalking statute, RSA 633:3-a (Supp. 1995). We affirm.
Shortly thereafter, the State moved to revoke the suspended witness tampering sentence on the basis of the defendant’s misdemeanor stalking conviction. The defendant, who was represented by counsel during the suspension proceedings, filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of the misdemeanor conviction, arguing that an uncounseled conviction cannot be used as a basis to revoke a suspended sentence. During the first of two days of hearings in April 1994, the trial court denied the defendant’s motion. The State introduced a certified copy of her conviction, which the defendant challenged, asserting that the stalking statute is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague. The trial court rejected the State’s argument that the constitutionality of the statute could not be attacked collaterally, and fоund no constitutional deficiency in the statute. The court then found that the defendant had violated the good behavior condition of her suspended sentence, and ordered her to serve nine months to two years of the sentence.
The defendant appeals, arguing that: (1) the trial court’s revocation of her suspended sentence, based upon her uncounseled class B misdemeanor conviction, violates her rights to counsel and due prоcess under part I, article 15 of the New Hampshire Constitution and the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution; and (2) RSA 633:3-a, the stalking statute, is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad under part I, article 15 of the New Hampshire Constitution and the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution.
We address the defendant’s claim first under the State Constitution, State v. Ball,
We first address the defendant’s right to counsel claim. It is well-settled that absent a valid waiver, an indigent defendant may not be sentenced to imprisonment unlеss he or she was represented by counsel in the proceedings leading to his or her conviction. Scott v. Illinois,
In permitting the collateral use of a prior uncounseled misdemeanor conviction to enhance a prison sentence on a subsequent offense, the United States Supreme Court in Nichols v. United States observed that “the line should be drawn between criminal proceedings which resulted in imprisonment, and those which did not.” Nichols,
Next the defendant argues that revocation of her suspended sentence based on the uncounseled misdemeanor stalking conviction violates her right to due process under part I, article 15 of the New Hampshire Constitution. In Stone v. Shea,
The defendant relied primarily on the position that because uncounseled convictions are unreliable they should not be used as the basis for revoking a suspended sentence. In Cook, we rejected a similar argument that minor uncounseled violations should not provide the basis for an habitual offender order because they are unreliable. Cook,
Thus, consistently with due process, petitioner in the present case could have been sentenced more severely based simply on evidence of the underlying conduct which gave rise to the previous . . . offense. And the state need only prove such conduct by a preponderance of the evidence. Surely, then, it must be constitutionally permissible to consider a prior uncounseled misdemeanor conviction based on the same conduct where that conduct must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Id. at 1928 (citation omitted). These same considerations apply to revоcation of the suspended sentence. The defendant’s sentence could have been revoked based on the conduct underlying the misdemeanor stalking conviction. Moody,
Finally, the defendant seeks to attack her misdemeanor conviction collaterally on the basis that RSA 633:3-a, the stalking statute, is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad under part I, article 15 of the New Hampshire Constitution and the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. The defendant failed to raise this issue on direct appeal. We decline to address this argument because the defendant has no right to challenge prior convictions collaterally at the hearing revoking her suspended sentence except when the prior conviction was based on a denial of the right to appointed counsеl, “a unique constitutional defect.” Custis v. United States,
Affirmed.
