Development of Right
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Annotations
Development of Right.—The development began in Powell v. Alabama,292 in which the Court set aside the convictions of eight black youths sentenced to death in a hastily carried-out trial without benefit of counsel. Due process, Justice Sutherland said for the Court, always requires the observance of certain fundamental personal rights associated with a hearing, and “the right to the aid of counsel is of this fundamental character.” This observation was about the right to retain counsel of one’s choice and at one’s expense, and included an eloquent statement of the necessity of counsel. “The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crimes, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence.”293
The failure to afford the defendants an opportunity to retain counsel violated due process, but the Court acknowledged that as indigents the youths could not have retained counsel. Therefore, the Court concluded, under the circumstances—“the ignorance and illiteracy of the defendants, their youth, the circumstances of public hostility, the imprisonment and the close surveillance of the defendants by the military forces, the fact that their friends and families were all in other states and communication with them necessarily difficult, and above all that they stood in deadly peril of their lives”— “the necessity of counsel was so vital and imperative that the failure of the trial court to make an effective appointment of counsel was likewise a denial of due process within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The holding was narrow. “[I]n a capital case, where the defendant is unable to employ counsel, and is incapable adequately of making his own defense because of ignorance, feeble mindedness, illiteracy, or the like, it is the duty of the court, whether requested or not, to assign counsel for him as a necessary requisite of due process of law . . . .”294
The next step in the expansion came in Johnson v. Zerbst,295 in which the Court announced an absolute rule requiring appointment of counsel for federal criminal defendants who could not afford to retain a lawyer. The right to assistance of counsel, Justice Black wrote for the Court, “is necessary to insure fundamental human rights of life and liberty.” Without stopping to distinguish between the right to retain counsel and the right to have counsel provided if the defendant cannot afford to hire one, the Justice quoted Justice Sutherland’s invocation of the necessity of legal counsel for even the intelligent and educated layman and said: “The Sixth Amendment withholds from federal courts, in all criminal proceedings, the power and authority to deprive an accused of his life or liberty unless he has or waives the assistance of counsel.”296 Any waiver, the Court ruled, must be by the intelligent choice of the defendant, will not be presumed from a silent record, and must be determined by the trial court before proceeding in the absence of counsel.297
An effort to obtain the same rule in the state courts in all criminal proceedings was rebuffed in Betts v. Brady.298 Justice Roberts for the Court observed that the Sixth Amendment would compel the result only in federal courts but that in state courts the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment “formulates a concept less rigid and more fluid” than those guarantees embodied in the Bill of Rights, although a state denial of a right protected in one of the first eight Amendments might “in certain circumstances” be a violation of due process. The question was rather “whether the constraint laid by the Amendment upon the national courts expresses a rule so fundamental and essential to a fair trial, and so, to due process of law, that it is made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.”299 Examining the common-law rules, the English practice, and the state constitutions, laws and practices, the Court concluded that it was the “considered judgment of the people, their representatives and their courts that appointment of counsel is not a fundamental right essential to a fair trial.” Want of counsel in a particular case might result in a conviction lacking in fundamental fairness and so necessitate the interposition of constitutional restriction upon state practice, but this was not the general rule.300 Justice Black in dissent argued that the Fourteenth Amendment made the Sixth applicable to the states and required the appointment of counsel, but that even on the Court’s terms counsel was a fundamental right and appointment was required by due process.301
Over time the Court abandoned the “special circumstances” language of Powell v. Alabama302 when capital cases were involved and finally in Hamilton v. Alabama,303 held that in a capital case a defendant need make no showing of particularized need or of prejudice resulting from absence of counsel; henceforth, assistance of counsel was a constitutional requisite in capital cases. In non-capital cases, developments were such that Justice Harlan could assert that “the ‘special circumstances’ rule has continued to exist in form while its substance has been substantially and steadily eroded.”304 The rule was designed to afford some certainty in the determination of when failure to appoint counsel would result in a trial lacking in “fundamental fairness.” Generally, the Court developed three categories of prejudicial factors, often overlapping in individual cases, which required the furnishing of assistance of counsel. There were (1) the personal characteristics of the defendant which made it unlikely he could obtain an adequate defense of his own,305 (2) the technical complexity of the charges or of possible defenses to the charges,306 and (3) events occurring at trial that raised problems of prejudice.307 The last characteristic especially had been used by the Court to set aside convictions occurring in the absence of counsel,308 and the last case rejecting a claim of denial of assistance of counsel had been decided in 1950.309
Against this background, a unanimous Court in Gideon v. Wainwright310 overruled Betts v. Brady and held “that in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.”311 Justice Black, a dissenter in the 1942 decision, asserted for the Court that Betts was an “abrupt break” with earlier precedents, citing Powell and Johnson v. Zerbst. Rejecting the Betts reasoning, the Court decided that the right to assistance of counsel is “fundamental” and the Fourteenth Amendment does make the right constitutionally required in state courts.312 The Court’s opinion in Gideon left unanswered the question whether the right to assistance of counsel could be claimed by defendants charged with misdemeanors or serious misdemeanors as well as with felonies, and it was not until later that the Court held that the right applies to any misdemeanor case in which imprisonment is imposed—that no person may be sentenced to jail who was convicted in the absence of counsel, unless he validly waived his right.313 The Court subsequently extended the right to cases where a suspended sentence or probationary period is imposed, on the theory that any future incarceration that occurred would be based on the original uncounseled conviction.314
Because the absence of counsel when a defendant is convicted or pleads guilty goes to the fairness of the proceedings and undermines the presumption of reliability that attaches to a judgment of a court, Gideon has been held fully retroactive, so that convictions obtained in the absence of counsel without a valid waiver are not only voidable,315 but also may not be subsequently used either to support guilt in a new trial or to enhance punishment upon a valid conviction.316
292 287 U.S. 45 (1932).
293 287 U.S. at 68–69.
294 287 U.S. at 71.
295 304 U.S. 458 (1938).
296 304 U.S. at 462, 463.
297 304 U.S. at 464–65. The standards for a valid waiver were tightened in Walker v. Johnston, 312 U.S. 275 (1941), setting aside a guilty plea made without assistance of counsel, by a ruling requiring that a defendant appearing in court be advised of his right to counsel and asked whether or not he wished to waive the right. See also Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708 (1948); Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506 (1962). A waiver must be knowing, voluntary, and intelligent, but need not be based on a full and complete understanding of all of the consequences. Iowa v. Tovar, 541 U.S. 77 (2004) (holding that warnings by trial judge detailing risks of waiving right to counsel are not constitutionally required before accepting guilty plea from uncounseled defendant).
298 316 U.S. 455 (1942).
299 316 U.S. at 461–62, 465.
300 316 U.S. at 471, 473.
301 316 U.S. at 474 (joined by Justices Douglas and Murphy).
302 287 U.S. 45, 71 (1932).
303 368 U.S. 52 (1961). Earlier cases employing the “special circumstances” language were Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.S. 471 (1945); Tompkins v. Missouri, 323 U.S. 485 (1945); Hawk v. Olson, 326 U.S. 271 (1945); De Meerleer v. Michigan, 329 U.S. 663 (1947); Marino v. Ragen, 332 U.S. 561 (1947); Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596 (1948). Dicta appeared in several cases thereafter suggesting an absolute right to counsel in capital cases. Bute v. Illinois, 333 U.S. 640, 674 (1948); Uveges v. Pennsylvania, 335 U.S. 437, 441 (1948). A state court decision finding a waiver of the right in a capital case was upheld in Carter v. Illinois, 329 U.S. 173 (1946).
304 Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 350 (1963).
305 Youth and immaturity (Moore v. Michigan, 355 U.S. 155 (1957); Pennsylvania ex rel. Herman v. Claudy, 350 U.S. 116 (1956); Uveges v. Pennsylvania, 335 U.S. 437 (1948); Wade v. Mayo, 334 U.S. 672 (1948); Marino v. Ragen, 332 U.S. 561 (1947); De Meerleer v. Michigan, 329 U.S. 663 (1947)), inexperience (Moore v. Michigan, supra (limited education), Uveges v. Pennsylvania, supra), and insanity or mental abnormality (Massey v. Moore, 348 U.S. 105 (1954); Palmer v. Ashe, 342 U.S. 134 (1951)), were commonly cited characteristics of the defendant demonstrating the necessity for assistance of counsel.
306 Technicality of the crime charged (Moore v. Michigan, 355 U.S. 155 (1957); Pennsylvania ex rel. Herman v. Claudy, 350 U.S. 116 (1956); Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.S. 471 (1945)), or the technicality of a possible defense (Rice v. Olson, 324 U.S. 786 (1945); McNeal v. Culver, 365 U.S. 109 (1961)), were commonly cited.
307 The deliberate or careless overreaching by the court or the prosecutor (Gibbs v. Burke, 337 U.S. 772 (1949); Townsend v. Burke, 334 U.S. 736 (1948); Palmer v. Ashe, 342 U.S. 134 (1951); White v. Ragen, 324 U.S. 760 (1945)), prejudicial developments during the trial (Cash v. Culver, 358 U.S. 633 (1959); Gibbs v. Burke, supra), and questionable proceedings at sentencing (Townsend v. Burke, supra), were commonly cited.
308 Hudson v. North Carolina, 363 U.S. 697 (1960), held that an unrepresented defendant had been prejudiced when his co-defendant’s counsel plead his client guilty in the presence of the jury, the applicable state rules to avoid prejudice in such situation were unclear, and the defendant in any event had taken no steps to protect himself. The case seemed to require reversal of any conviction when the record contained a prejudicial occurrence that under state law might have been prevented or ameliorated. Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506 (1962), reversed a conviction because the unrepresented defendant failed to follow some advantageous procedure that a lawyer might have utilized. Chewning v. Cunningham, 368 U.S. 443 (1962), found that a lawyer might have developed several defenses and adopted several tactics to defeat a charge under a state recidivist statute, and that therefore the unrepresented defendant had been prejudiced.
309 Quicksal v. Michigan, 339 U.S. 660 (1950). See also Canizio v. New York, 327 U.S. 82 (1946); Foster v. Illinois, 332 U.S. 134 (1947); Gayes v. New York, 332 U.S. 145 (1947); Bute v. Illinois, 333 U.S. 640 (1948); Gryger v. Burke, 334 U.S. 728 (1948). Cf. White v. Ragen, 324 U.S. 760 (1945).
310 372 U.S. 335 (1963).
311 372 U.S. at 344.
312 372 U.S. at 342–43, 344. Justice Black, of course, believed the Fourteenth Amendment made applicable to the States all the provisions of the Bill of Rights, Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 71 (1947), but for purposes of delivering the opinion of the Court followed the due process absorption doctrine. Justice Douglas, concurring, maintained the incorporation position. Gideon, 372 U.S. at 345. Justice Harlan concurred, objecting both to the Court’s manner of overruling Betts v. Brady and to the incorporation implications of the opinion. Id. at 349.
313 Scott v. Illinois, 440 U.S. 367 (1979), adopted a rule of actual punishment and thus modified Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972), which had held counsel required if imprisonment were possible. The Court has also extended the right of assistance of counsel to juvenile proceedings. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967). See also Specht v. Patterson, 386 U.S. 605 (1967).
314 Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U.S. 654 (2002).
315 Pickelsimer v. Wainwright, 375 U.S. 2 (1963); Doughty v. Maxwell, 376 U.S. 202 (1964); Kitchens v. Smith, 401 U.S. 847 (1971). See Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 639 (1965).
316 Loper v. Beto, 405 U.S. 473 (1972) (error to have permitted counseled defendant in 1947 trial to have his credibility impeached by introduction of prior uncounseled convictions in the 1930s; Chief Justice Burger and Justices Blackmun, Powell, and Rehnquist dissented); United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443 (1972) (error for sentencing judge in 1953 to have relied on two previous convictions at which defendant was without counsel); Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109 (1967) (admission of record of prior conviction without the assistance of counsel at trial, with instruction to jury to regard it only for purposes of determining sentence if it found defendant guilty, but not to use it in considering guilt, was inherently prejudicial); but see United States v. Bryant, 579 U.S. ___, No. 15–420, slip op. at 13 (2016) (holding that the use of prior, uncounseled tribal-court domestic abuse convictions as the predicates for a sentence enhancement in a subsequent conviction does not violate the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, as repeat offender laws penalize only the last offense committed by the defendant); Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738 (1994) (as Scott v. Illinois, 440 U.S. 367 (1979) recognized that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is valid if defendant is not incarcerated, such a conviction may be used as the basis for penalty enhancement upon a subsequent conviction).
