Darryl E. Smith v. Robert Farley and Indiana Attorney General

The opinion of the court advances four principal propositions:

1. A state need not permit an indirect collateral attack on an earlier conviction in the course of sentencing for a new offense.

2. A state should afford collateral review of the earlier conviction, after it has become salient to a sentence for another crime, subject to the standard rules about forfeiture, relitigation, undue delay, and abuse of the writ.

3. If the court in the collateral proceeding sets aside the earlier conviction, any sentence enhanced because of that conviction must be set aside, and the defendant must be…