Powell v. Alabama

Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932), argued 10 Oct. 1932, decided 7 Nov. 1932 by vote of 7 to 2; Sutherland for the Court, Butler and McReynolds in dissent. Powell v. Alabama was the first of the notorious Scottsboro cases decided by the Supreme Court. Nine black youths were arrested near Scottsboro, Alabama, and charged with having raped two white women riding on a freight train in March 1931. The accused youths were hastily indicted and tried for the crime of rape. On the day of the trials, an attorney appeared on behalf of the defendants, but indicated he would not formally represent them. The trial judge then stated that all members of the local bar present in the courtroom should represent the accused. Most of the local bar nevertheless withdrew from the case. Two attorneys did appear on behalf on the accused but had no opportunity to investigate the case and consulted with the defendants for only thirty minutes prior to the trials. Eight of the defendants were convicted and sentenced to death after brief trials, while there was a hung jury in the case of the remaining defendant.

Over the dissent of Chief Justice John C. Anderson, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of seven of the defendants, while reversing the conviction of one of the Scottsboro youths because he was a juvenile. Following a bitter struggle between the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the International Labor Defense, the Communist‐dominated International Labor Defense won control of the Scottsboro cases, and it was under the sponsorship of that group that Powell v. Alabama was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Speaking for the Court, Justice George Sutherland held that the convictions of the Scottsboro defendants must be reversed under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the Due Process Clause, the states were required to afford criminal defendants fair trials, and the right to counsel was an integral part of due process. Hence, at least under the circumstances existing in the Scottsboro cases, the failure of the trial court to appoint counsel for indigent defendants denied them the right to a fair trial. Dissenting from the Court's reversal of the Scottsboro convictions, Justice Pierce Butler, joined by Justice James McReynolds, argued that the defendants had received the effective assistance of counsel. They contended that the Court, by reversing the convictions, was engaging in an unwarranted interference with the administration of justice in the state courts.

The Powell case was the first occasion in which the Supreme Court had held that the Due Process Clause required the appointment of counsel by state courts for indigent defendants in those cases in which lack of representation by counsel would result in an unfair trial. The Court did not rule in Powell, however, that the assistance of counsel clause of the Sixth Amendment was applicable to the states. Rather, the Court held only that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause required fair trials for state criminal defendants, and that in some cases a fair trial could not be obtained unless the accused was represented by counsel. After the Powell decision, the Court thus followed the rule that the Due Process Clause required the state courts to appoint counsel for indigent defendants in all capital cases but that appointed counsel for indigent defendants in noncapital state cases was required only if an unfair trial would result for a defendant unrepresented by counsel. In contrast, the rule the Court enforced under the assistance of counsel clause of the Sixth Amendment, applicable in the federal courts, required the federal courts to appoint counsel for indigent defendants facing serious criminal charges in all cases, capital or noncapital.

In Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), however, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause required the appointment of counsel for indigent defendants facing serious criminal charges in all state cases, capital or noncapital. This brought the rule governing the right to counsel in state courts into conformity with the rule applicable in the federal courts under the Sixth Amendment. The Gideon case is regarded as having incorporated the assistance of counsel clause of the Sixth Amendment into the Fourteenth Amendment, making it applicable to the states, an expansion of the constitutional right to counsel that began with the Court's decision in Powell v. Alabama in 1932.

See also Due Process, Procedural.

Bibliography

Dan T. Carter , Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South, rev. ed. (1979).

Richard C Cortner