Does the Sixth Amendment right to assistance of counsel, made obligatory on the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, require a state court to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant charged with a noncapital felony?

Clarence Earl Gideon was charged in a Florida state court with breaking and entering a poolroom with intent to commit a misdemeanor, a felony under Florida law. Appearing in court without funds and without a lawyer, Gideon asked the trial court to appoint counsel. The court refused, explaining that under Florida law it could appoint counsel only when a defendant was charged with a capital offense. Gideon responded that the United States Supreme Court says he was entitled to be represented by counsel.

Gideon conducted his own defense before a jury about as well as a layman could. He made an opening statement, cross-examined the State's witnesses, presented witnesses in his own defense, declined to testify himself, and made a short closing argument emphasizing his innocence. The jury returned a guilty verdict, and Gideon was sentenced to five years in state prison.

After conviction in the Florida trial court, Gideon filed a habeas corpus petition in the Florida Supreme Court, attacking his conviction and sentence on the ground that the trial court's refusal to appoint counsel denied him rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Florida Supreme Court, treating the petition as properly before it, denied all relief without an opinion. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari, 370 U.S. 908, appointed counsel for Gideon because he was proceeding in forma pauperis, and asked both sides to address whether Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, should be reconsidered.

(Black, J.)

Yes. The Sixth Amendment's guarantee of counsel is a fundamental right essential to a fair trial, and the Fourteenth Amendment makes it obligatory on the states. A state court must appoint counsel for an indigent defendant charged with a felony. Betts v. Brady is overruled.

Betts assumed that a Bill of Rights provision that is fundamental and essential to a fair trial is made obligatory on the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. That assumption is accepted, but Betts erred in concluding that the right to counsel is not such a right. Betts made an abrupt break with its own well-considered precedents. Ten years earlier, Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68 (1932), unequivocally declared that the right to the aid of counsel is of this fundamental character. Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233 (1936), and Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 (1938), reaffirmed that the right is a safeguard necessary to ensure fundamental human rights of life and liberty. Returning to those precedents restores established constitutional principles.

Reason and reflection confirm the point. In an adversary system, any person haled into court who is too poor to hire a lawyer cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided. Governments spend vast sums to hire lawyers to prosecute, and defendants who can afford to do so hire the best lawyers they can get. That practice shows that lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries. As Powell explained, even an intelligent layman lacks the skill and knowledge to prepare a defense and faces conviction on incompetent or inadmissible evidence, even if innocent. The Betts rule was an anachronism when handed down, and Gideon's case is indistinguishable from Betts on its facts. The judgment is reversed and remanded.

Concurrence (Douglas, J.) The Fourteenth Amendment protects against state infringement the privileges, protections, and safeguards granted by the Bill of Rights. Ten Justices have held that view, though it has never commanded a majority of the Court. Rights protected against state invasion by the Due Process Clause are not watered-down versions of what the Bill of Rights guarantees against the federal government.

Concurring in the judgment (Clark, J.) The Sixth Amendment plainly requires appointed counsel in all criminal prosecutions, and the Fourteenth Amendment already requires appointment in capital cases. Today's decision erases a distinction between capital and noncapital cases that has no basis in logic and an increasingly eroded basis in authority. The Fourteenth Amendment requires due process for the deprivation of liberty just as for the deprivation of life, and the quality of process cannot depend on a supposed difference in the sanction involved.

Concurrence (Harlan, J.) Betts v. Brady is overruled, but it deserves a more respectful burial. It was not an abrupt break with precedent; it extended Powell v. Alabama, which was limited to special circumstances in a capital case, to noncapital cases. Since Betts, the special circumstances rule has been steadily eroded, and the existence of a serious criminal charge has come to constitute special circumstances in itself. Continuing a rule honored only with lip service would disserve the federal system. The right to counsel should be recognized as fundamental in cases carrying the possibility of a substantial prison sentence. Holding a right valid against the states does not automatically carry over the entire body of federal law governing it. Harlan does not read today's decision to depart from Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, or to hold that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Sixth Amendment as such.