Excerpts from the majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Powell v. State of Alabama, November 1932
After the Alabama Supreme Court upheld all but one of the eight Scottsboro convictions and death sentences, by a 6–1 vote in January, 1932, the lawyers for the International Defense League appealed the cases to the United States Supreme Court. In the landmark case of Powell v. Alabama, the Court, 7– 2, overturned the convictions. This meant that there would have to be new trials for each of them.
OZIE POWELL, WILLIE ROBERSON, ANDY WRIGHT, AND OLEN MONTGOMERY v. ALABAMA; HAYWOOD PATTERSON v. SAME; CHARLEY WEEMS AND CLARENCE NORRIS v. SAME
Nos. 98, 99, 100
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
287 U. S. 45; 53 S. CT. 55: 1932
OCTOBER 10, 1932, ARGUED
NOVEMBER 7, 1932, DECIDED
Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, 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 had 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. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect. If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a denial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense…
In the light of the facts outlined in the forepart of this opinion—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—we think the failure of the trial court to give them reasonable time and opportunity to secure counsel was a clear denial of due process.
The United States by statute and every state in the Union by express provision of law, or by the determination of its courts, make it the duty of the trial judge, where the accused is unable to employ counsel, to appoint counsel for him. In most states the rule applies broadly to all criminal prosecutions, in others it is limited to the more serious crimes, and in a very limited number, to capital cases. A rule adopted with such unanimous accord reflects, if it does not establish, the inherent right to have counsel appointed, at least in cases like the present, and lends convincing support to the conclusion we have reached as to the fundamental nature of that right.
The judgments must be reversed and the causes remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Judgments reversed.
Source: 287 U.S. 45, 1932 available online at www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_powus.html. (Document 5.10.13)