  This work is a natural continuation of our recent study in quantizing
relativistic particles. There it was demonstrated that, by applying a
consistent quantization scheme to a classical model of a spinless relativistic
particle as well as to the Berezin-Marinov model of 3+1 Dirac particle, it is
possible to obtain a consistent relativistic quantum mechanics of such
particles. In the present article we apply a similar approach to the problem of
quantizing the massive 2+1 Dirac particle. However, we stress that such a
problem differs in a nontrivial way from the one in 3+1 dimensions. The point
is that in 2+1 dimensions each spin polarization describes different fermion
species. Technically this fact manifests itself through the presence of a
bifermionic constant and of a bifermionic first-class constraint. In
particular, this constraint does not admit a conjugate gauge condition at the
classical level. The quantization problem in 2+1 dimensions is also interesting
from the physical viewpoint (e.g. anyons). In order to quantize the model, we
first derive a classical formulation in an effective phase space, restricted by
constraints and gauges. Then the condition of preservation of the classical
symmetries allows us to realize the operator algebra in an unambiguous way and
construct an appropriate Hilbert space. The physical sector of the constructed
quantum mechanics contains spin-1/2 particles and antiparticles without an
infinite number of negative-energy levels, and exactly reproduces the
one-particle sector of the 2+1 quantum theory of a spinor field.
