Powell V Birmingham Jail Case Study
The Significance of the Right to Effective Counsel in a Criminal Case and Powell v. Alabama
The right to counsel is a fundamental common law principle that aims to set a fair criminal trial. The right to have the assistance of counsel for defence is the right of a criminal defendant to have a lawyer assist in his defence, even if he cannot afford one. This right comes from a variety of sources, the first one being the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. 1
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial …show more content…
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 defence.”2
The Sixth Amendment aims to provide criminal defendants with a right to counsel since a criminal conviction is likely to produce substantial deprivations due to the law’s complexity. The proper application of this right however was the result of decades of legal debate and outcomes of highly controversial criminal cases. Powell v.Alabama 287 U.S. 45 (1932) decision was critical in the process of determining that in a capital trial, the defendant must be given access to counsel upon his or her own request as part of due process. Powell v. Alabama case was a pioneer in this area of law since it was the first Court decision that reversed a state criminal conviction for a violation of criminal procedural provision of the United States Bill of Rights. The Court stated the justification for the right to counsel in criminal proceedings in the celebrated case of Powell v. Alabama. The case was one of the two famous “Scottsboro cases”, in which nine black youths were charged with the rape of two white girls.
The case was highly controversial due to its political and historical background. Before the analysis of The Powell case the historical background of the events leading up to trial need to be briefly examined.
By the 1930s, the reign of Jim Crow had reached its apex in the southern states. Segregation of the races was the definite norm across the entire region. Discrimination, climaxed after the devastating effects of the Great Depression, was particularly intense and intimidation and terror was at its harshest with the rise of a new Ku Klux Klan. Social attitudes of the white people in the South portrayed a strong desire to keep the races separate, and consequently far from equal according to the Plessy standart. A group of African American citizens even voted and held public office and made declarations publicly about the extreme conditions and the abuses in the South.
The events that were brought to trial with The Powell case took place while such an ambiance was upon the southern states.
Circumstances of the case were as follows:
On March 25, 1931, nine young black men were traveling on a freight train through Alabama. Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, and brothers Roy and Andy Wright were friends, having grown up together in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Ozie Powell, Olen Montgomery, Charley Weems, Willie Roberson, and Clarence Norris all hailed from different parts of Georgia. Also on the train were seven white men and two white women.
During the ride a fight broke out, and six of the seven white men were thrown off the train. The train stopped near Scottsboro, Alabama, and a sheriff's posse comprised of private citizens seized the young black men. The white females, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, claimed that they had been raped. The bewildered black youths were roped together, herded into a truck, and driven to Scottsboro, the Jackson County seat. That night, an unruly mob demanded to lynch the youths, but Sheriff M. L. Wann kept them safe.
The youths were indicted on charges of rape on March 31, 1931. They were arraigned the same day in the Jackson County Circuit Court, where they entered pleas of not guilty. Although they faced rape charges, a capital offense at the time, they were held without an opportunity to communicate with the outside world, and no attorney came to see them. Most of the defendants were illiterate, and none had even an elementary knowledge of criminal law.
At the beginning of the first trial, Judge Alfred E. Hawkins asked the defendants whether they were ready to proceed to trial. Although he previously had ordered members of the local bar to assist the defendants, no attorney answered for the defendants except the 70 year-old Scottsboro lawyer Milo Moody and Stephen Roddy who was not a member of the Alabama bar or a criminal defence attorney. Hence, Roddy was unfamiliar with the court rules of the state of Alabama and almost completely ineffective. During the trial, it became clear that the youths had not seen an attorney until the trial day and they would not receive effective representation in their capital trials.
The trials themselves were far from fair as well. Helpful evidence for the defendants was excluded and each trial lasted shorter than a day, resulting with the conviction and death sentences of eight out of the nine defendants.
Naturally, the convictions of the “Scottsboro Boys” started a national debate over the fairness of the proceedings. After their convictions, the defendants’ representatives Chamlee and Brodsky argued that the convictions should be reversed since the jury was influenced by the furious crowd outside and the defendants had not received adequate legal representation.
On November 7, 1932, the Court reversed all convictions and Justice George Sutherland began the Court’s legal analysis by declaring that, in a criminal case although the defendants may have appeared guilty, they were nonetheless presumed to be innocent. He then proceeded to frame the issue in the case as whether the defendants were denied the assistance of counsel, and if so whether such a denial was an infringement of their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the amendment that makes due process requirements applicable to the states.
Sutherland concluded that states were obliged under the Constitution to provide the right to an attorney in a criminal case and that the right had not been extended to the defendants in this particular case.
Justice Sutherland’s often quoted statement on why an accused needs counsel during the trial exhibits the significance of the right to effective counsel in a criminal case and highlights how fundamental this right is to hold a fair trial according to law. His statement was as follows:
“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 crime, he is incapable, generally or determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without aid of counsel, he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible against him. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defence, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without counsel, though he may not be guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence.”3
These words of Justice Sutherland in Powell v.
Alabama are a clear statement of the importance of the defendant’s right to counsel in a criminal proceeding. The right to counsel has been the source of much controversy within the U.S. law over the past decades. However, in the light of the words of Justice Sutherland, the failure of the trial court to appoint counsel was found a denial of due process. The Powell case holding declared that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required that state courts give defendants an opportunity to obtain counsel for defendants in all capital cases who are not able to afford one and an attorney free of charge in noncapital …show more content…
cases.
The Powell case has been used as precedent for other Supreme Court decisions expanding the right to counsel, as well as decisions establishing that the legal representation defendants receive should not fall below a minimum standard of effectiveness.4
In conclusion, it is clear that the right to counsel is one of the fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all civil and political institutions. The failure of trial courts to give all defendants in criminal cases - particularly the capital ones- reasonable time and opportunity to secure counsel is a clear denial of due process. The Powell case was the watershed case since it set the grounds for the process of incorporation into State constitutions of fair trial rights guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and secured an essential right for all defendants in a criminal case.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
California Law Review. Volume 48/ Issue 3. The Right to Counsel [Online Archive] Available at: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3162&context=californialawreview
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Powell+vs+alabama (Accessed: 9 November 2013)
Cornell Law Review.
Powell v. Alabama 100 U.S. 1 224 Ala. 524, 531, 540, reversed. [Available at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0287_0045_ZS.html (Accessed: 9 November 2013)
Del Carmen, R. (2010). Criminal Procedure: Law and Practice: Law And Practice. Ebook. [Online] Available at: http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=9ctbsWu6vzAC&pg=PA464&lpg=PA464&dq=importance+of+right+to+counsel+in+a+criminal+case+powell+alabama&source=bl&ots=UCzbwHuwXk&sig=i8ogNYxhhGHIDYm0bnuz8FvnlNU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0Rt-UsvfA82KswalyICICg&ved=0CCMQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=importance%20of%20right%20to%20counsel%20in%20a%20criminal%20case%20powell%20alabama&f=falsehttp://books.google.com.tr/books?id=9ctbsWu6vzAC&pg=PA464&lpg=PA464&dq=importance+of+right+to+counsel+in+a+criminal+case+powell+alabama&source=bl&ots=UCzbwHuwXk&sig=i8ogNYxhhGHIDYm0bnuz8FvnlNU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0Rt-UsvfA82KswalyICICg&ved=0CCMQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=importance%20of%20right%20to%20counsel%20in%20a%20criminal%20case%20powell%20alabama&f=false
Mosher, J. (2013). ‘Understanding Powell v. Alabama’ Sixth Amendment Center, 17 January [Online]. Available at: http://sixthamendment.org/understanding-powell-v-alabama/ (Accessed: 9 November 2013)
Powell v. Alabama [Online] http://kids.laws.com/powell-v-alabama (Accessed: 9 November
2013)
Powell v. Alabama [Online] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Powell+vs+alabama (Accessed: 9 November 2013)
The right to counsel is a fundamental common law principle that aims to set a fair criminal trial. The right to have the assistance of counsel for defence is the right of a criminal defendant to have a lawyer assist in his defence, even if he cannot afford one. This right comes from a variety of sources, the first one being the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. 1
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial …show more content…
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 defence.”2
The Sixth Amendment aims to provide criminal defendants with a right to counsel since a criminal conviction is likely to produce substantial deprivations due to the law’s complexity. The proper application of this right however was the result of decades of legal debate and outcomes of highly controversial criminal cases. Powell v.Alabama 287 U.S. 45 (1932) decision was critical in the process of determining that in a capital trial, the defendant must be given access to counsel upon his or her own request as part of due process. Powell v. Alabama case was a pioneer in this area of law since it was the first Court decision that reversed a state criminal conviction for a violation of criminal procedural provision of the United States Bill of Rights. The Court stated the justification for the right to counsel in criminal proceedings in the celebrated case of Powell v. Alabama. The case was one of the two famous “Scottsboro cases”, in which nine black youths were charged with the rape of two white girls.
The case was highly controversial due to its political and historical background. Before the analysis of The Powell case the historical background of the events leading up to trial need to be briefly examined.
By the 1930s, the reign of Jim Crow had reached its apex in the southern states. Segregation of the races was the definite norm across the entire region. Discrimination, climaxed after the devastating effects of the Great Depression, was particularly intense and intimidation and terror was at its harshest with the rise of a new Ku Klux Klan. Social attitudes of the white people in the South portrayed a strong desire to keep the races separate, and consequently far from equal according to the Plessy standart. A group of African American citizens even voted and held public office and made declarations publicly about the extreme conditions and the abuses in the South.
The events that were brought to trial with The Powell case took place while such an ambiance was upon the southern states.
Circumstances of the case were as follows:
On March 25, 1931, nine young black men were traveling on a freight train through Alabama. Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, and brothers Roy and Andy Wright were friends, having grown up together in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Ozie Powell, Olen Montgomery, Charley Weems, Willie Roberson, and Clarence Norris all hailed from different parts of Georgia. Also on the train were seven white men and two white women.
During the ride a fight broke out, and six of the seven white men were thrown off the train. The train stopped near Scottsboro, Alabama, and a sheriff's posse comprised of private citizens seized the young black men. The white females, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, claimed that they had been raped. The bewildered black youths were roped together, herded into a truck, and driven to Scottsboro, the Jackson County seat. That night, an unruly mob demanded to lynch the youths, but Sheriff M. L. Wann kept them safe.
The youths were indicted on charges of rape on March 31, 1931. They were arraigned the same day in the Jackson County Circuit Court, where they entered pleas of not guilty. Although they faced rape charges, a capital offense at the time, they were held without an opportunity to communicate with the outside world, and no attorney came to see them. Most of the defendants were illiterate, and none had even an elementary knowledge of criminal law.
At the beginning of the first trial, Judge Alfred E. Hawkins asked the defendants whether they were ready to proceed to trial. Although he previously had ordered members of the local bar to assist the defendants, no attorney answered for the defendants except the 70 year-old Scottsboro lawyer Milo Moody and Stephen Roddy who was not a member of the Alabama bar or a criminal defence attorney. Hence, Roddy was unfamiliar with the court rules of the state of Alabama and almost completely ineffective. During the trial, it became clear that the youths had not seen an attorney until the trial day and they would not receive effective representation in their capital trials.
The trials themselves were far from fair as well. Helpful evidence for the defendants was excluded and each trial lasted shorter than a day, resulting with the conviction and death sentences of eight out of the nine defendants.
Naturally, the convictions of the “Scottsboro Boys” started a national debate over the fairness of the proceedings. After their convictions, the defendants’ representatives Chamlee and Brodsky argued that the convictions should be reversed since the jury was influenced by the furious crowd outside and the defendants had not received adequate legal representation.
On November 7, 1932, the Court reversed all convictions and Justice George Sutherland began the Court’s legal analysis by declaring that, in a criminal case although the defendants may have appeared guilty, they were nonetheless presumed to be innocent. He then proceeded to frame the issue in the case as whether the defendants were denied the assistance of counsel, and if so whether such a denial was an infringement of their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the amendment that makes due process requirements applicable to the states.
Sutherland concluded that states were obliged under the Constitution to provide the right to an attorney in a criminal case and that the right had not been extended to the defendants in this particular case.
Justice Sutherland’s often quoted statement on why an accused needs counsel during the trial exhibits the significance of the right to effective counsel in a criminal case and highlights how fundamental this right is to hold a fair trial according to law. His statement was as follows:
“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 crime, he is incapable, generally or determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without aid of counsel, he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible against him. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defence, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without counsel, though he may not be guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence.”3
These words of Justice Sutherland in Powell v.
Alabama are a clear statement of the importance of the defendant’s right to counsel in a criminal proceeding. The right to counsel has been the source of much controversy within the U.S. law over the past decades. However, in the light of the words of Justice Sutherland, the failure of the trial court to appoint counsel was found a denial of due process. The Powell case holding declared that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required that state courts give defendants an opportunity to obtain counsel for defendants in all capital cases who are not able to afford one and an attorney free of charge in noncapital …show more content…
cases.
The Powell case has been used as precedent for other Supreme Court decisions expanding the right to counsel, as well as decisions establishing that the legal representation defendants receive should not fall below a minimum standard of effectiveness.4
In conclusion, it is clear that the right to counsel is one of the fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all civil and political institutions. The failure of trial courts to give all defendants in criminal cases - particularly the capital ones- reasonable time and opportunity to secure counsel is a clear denial of due process. The Powell case was the watershed case since it set the grounds for the process of incorporation into State constitutions of fair trial rights guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and secured an essential right for all defendants in a criminal case.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
California Law Review. Volume 48/ Issue 3. The Right to Counsel [Online Archive] Available at: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3162&context=californialawreview
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Powell+vs+alabama (Accessed: 9 November 2013)
Cornell Law Review.
Powell v. Alabama 100 U.S. 1 224 Ala. 524, 531, 540, reversed. [Available at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0287_0045_ZS.html (Accessed: 9 November 2013)
Del Carmen, R. (2010). Criminal Procedure: Law and Practice: Law And Practice. Ebook. [Online] Available at: http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=9ctbsWu6vzAC&pg=PA464&lpg=PA464&dq=importance+of+right+to+counsel+in+a+criminal+case+powell+alabama&source=bl&ots=UCzbwHuwXk&sig=i8ogNYxhhGHIDYm0bnuz8FvnlNU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0Rt-UsvfA82KswalyICICg&ved=0CCMQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=importance%20of%20right%20to%20counsel%20in%20a%20criminal%20case%20powell%20alabama&f=falsehttp://books.google.com.tr/books?id=9ctbsWu6vzAC&pg=PA464&lpg=PA464&dq=importance+of+right+to+counsel+in+a+criminal+case+powell+alabama&source=bl&ots=UCzbwHuwXk&sig=i8ogNYxhhGHIDYm0bnuz8FvnlNU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0Rt-UsvfA82KswalyICICg&ved=0CCMQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=importance%20of%20right%20to%20counsel%20in%20a%20criminal%20case%20powell%20alabama&f=false
Mosher, J. (2013). ‘Understanding Powell v. Alabama’ Sixth Amendment Center, 17 January [Online]. Available at: http://sixthamendment.org/understanding-powell-v-alabama/ (Accessed: 9 November 2013)
Powell v. Alabama [Online] http://kids.laws.com/powell-v-alabama (Accessed: 9 November
2013)
Powell v. Alabama [Online] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Powell+vs+alabama (Accessed: 9 November 2013)