Gideon v. Wainwright · ¶30

I cannot subscribe to the view that Betts v. Brady represented “an abrupt break with its own well-considered precedents.” Ante, p. 344. In 1932, in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, a capital case, this Court declared that under the particular facts there presented — “the ignorance and illiteracy of the defendants, their youth, the circumstances of public hostility... and above all that they stood in deadly peril of their lives” (287 U. S., at 71) — the state court had a duty to assign counsel for the trial as a necessary requisite of due process of law. It is evident that these limiting facts were not added to the opinion as an afterthought; they were repeatedly emphasized, see 287 U. S., at 52, 57-58, 71, and were clearly regarded as important to the result.

U. S. Reports, bound volume
U. S. Reports, volume 372, at 335 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
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