1. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires a
state to afford a defendant assistance of counsel in a noncapital
criminal case when there are special circumstances showing that,
without a lawyer, the defendant could not have an adequate and fair
defense. P.
342 U. S. 134.
2. Without counsel and without being offered counsel or advised
of his right to counsel, petitioner pleaded guilty and was
sentenced to two consecutive terms of five to fifteen years each on
charges of armed robbery and attempted armed robbery. Years later,
in a habeas corpus proceeding in a Pennsylvania court, he alleged
that, both upon his arrest and at his arraignment, he was told that
he was charged with "breaking and entering," that he was then a
young, irresponsible boy who had spent several years in a mental
institution, and that he did not know that he was charged with
armed robbery until after he reached prison. The record was not
sufficient to refute these allegations, but the state court
dismissed his petition without affording him an opportunity to
prove them.
Held: judgment reversed, and cause remanded for further
proceedings. Pp.
342 U. S.
135-138.
(a) If petitioner's allegations are proven, they would present
compelling reasons why he desperately needed legal counsel and
services. Pp.
342 U. S.
136-137.
(b) In a habeas corpus proceeding challenging the
constitutionality of a conviction for crime, the trial record may
relevantly be considered, but the record in this case does not even
inferentially deny petitioner's charge that the officers deceived
him, nor show an understanding plea of guilty. Pp.
342 U. S.
137-138.
Reversed and remanded.
A Pennsylvania trial court dismissed petitioner's habeas corpus
proceeding. The Superior Court affirmed. 167 Pa.Super. 88, 74 A.2d
725. The State Supreme Court refused to allow an appeal. This Court
granted certiorari. 341 U.S. 919.
Reversed and remanded,
p.
342 U. S.
138.
Page 342 U. S. 135
Opinion of the Court by MR. JUSTICE BLACK, announced by MR.
JUSTICE FRANKFURTER.
This Court has repeatedly held that the Due Process Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to afford defendants
assistance of counsel in noncapital criminal cases when there are
special circumstances showing that, without a lawyer, a defendant
could not have an adequate and a fair defense.
* Petitioner, a
prisoner in a Pennsylvania penitentiary, is serving the second of
two five-to-fifteen-year sentences simultaneously imposed after
pleas of guilty to state offenses. He sought release in these
habeas corpus proceedings filed in a Pennsylvania Court of Common
Pleas. His petition alleged that his pleas of guilty were entered
without benefit of counsel, and that other special circumstances
existed which deprived him of opportunity and capacity fairly to
defend himself. Answers of the warden and district attorney
admitted that petitioner had not been represented by counsel, but
asserted that the trial record sufficiently refuted petitioner's
allegations. On consideration of the petition and answers, the
court held that petitioner's allegations, in light of the record,
failed to show probable cause for his discharge. The case was then
dismissed, thereby depriving petitioner of any opportunity to
offer
Page 342 U. S. 136
evidence to prove his allegations. The Superior Court affirmed,
167 Pa.Super. 88, 74 A.2d 725, and the State Supreme Court refused
to allow an appeal. The right to counsel being an important
constitutional safeguard, we granted petitioner's motion to proceed
in forma pauperis and his petition for certiorari. 341
U.S. 919.
We must look to the petition and answers to determine whether
the particular circumstances alleged are sufficient to entitle
petitioner to a judicial hearing. In summary, these allegations
are: when petitioner was arrested December 20, 1930, the officers
told him that he was charged with "breaking and entering the
Leaders Dry Goods Store." Later, before a magistrate, he was again
told that the charge was "breaking and entering." Petitioner never
saw the indictments against him, nor were they read to him. He
never knew he had been charged with robbery, and never intended to
plead guilty to such a crime. Taken to the courtroom,
"the District Attorney informed the Court, that 'the defendant
wishes to plead guilty' and, in the matter of a minute, more or
less, the foregoing sentence was entered after he answered 'Yes' to
the Court's query, 'Do you plead guilty to this charge?' Petitioner
'was not represented by counsel, nor offered counsel, or advised of
his right to have counsel.' . . ."
After arrival at the penitentiary, petitioner first learned,
according to his petition, that he had been sentenced for robbery,
and not for the lesser charge of "breaking and entering." The
petition also alleges that petitioner, when arrested, was
"a young irresponsible boy, having spent several years in Polk
(because he was mentally abnormal), as well as several years in
Morganza."
This allegation of mental abnormality is supported by the
penitentiary warden's answer showing that petitioner had been
confined in Polk (a state institution) from August, 1918, to
September, 1920, because he was an "imbecile." The warden's answer
also shows that petitioner was born
Page 342 U. S. 137
in 1909; was a state orphanage inmate for a year beginning in
1916, and was in reformatories for larceny or "breaking and
entering" for eight of the ten years between the time of his
release from the mental institution and the time of the offense for
which he is now in prison.
All of the foregoing allegations, if proven, would present
compelling reasons why petitioner desperately needed legal counsel
and services. Incarceration as a boy for imbecility, followed by
repeated activities wholly incompatible with normal standards of
conduct, indicates no qualities of mind or character calculated to
enable petitioner to protect himself in the give-and-take of a
courtroom trial. Moreover, if there can be proof of what he
charges, he is the victim of inadvertent or intentional deception
by officers who, so he alleges, persuaded him to plead guilty to
armed robbery by telling him he was only charged with breaking and
entering, an offense for which the maximum imprisonment is only ten
years, as compared to twenty years for armed robbery. 18 Purdon's
Pa.Stat.Ann. (1930) §§ 2892, 3041. In this aspect of the
case, the allegations are strikingly like those that we held
entitled the petitioner to a hearing in
Smith v. O'Grady,
312 U. S. 329.
It is strongly urged here, however, that petitioner's
allegations are satisfactorily refuted by the trial record, and
that the Court should not now look behind that record, particularly
in view of the long time that has elapsed since petitioner pleaded
guilty. Of course, the trial record may relevantly be considered in
the habeas corpus proceeding. In some respects, petitioner's
allegations are refuted by the record. But that record does not
even inferentially deny petitioner's charge that the officers
deceived him, nor does the record show an understanding plea of
guilty from this petitioner, unless by a resort to speculation and
surmise. The right to counsel is too valuable in our system to
dilute it by such untrustworthy
Page 342 U. S. 138
reasoning.
Cf. Hawk v. Olson, 326 U.
S. 271,
326 U. S. 278.
The judgment dismissing the petition is reversed, and the cause is
remanded to the State Supreme Court for further action not
inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
*
Uveges v. Pennsylvania, 335 U.
S. 437;
Bute v. Illinois, 333 U.
S. 640,
333 U. S. 677,
and cases cited. It was pointed out in the
Uveges opinion
that a minority of the Court believed the Fourteenth and Sixth
Amendments require both state and federal courts to afford
defendants in all criminal prosecutions the assistance of counsel
for their defense.
MR. JUSTICE MINTON, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE
REED and MR. JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting.
Petitioner's contention is that, because of the special
circumstances of his case, the failure to provide him counsel was a
denial of due process of law.
The following facts of record were before the Pennsylvania
courts: most of petitioner's life had been spent in Pennsylvania
mental and correctional institutions. At the age of eight, he was
placed in Polk State School, a mental institution, from which he
was discharged in less than two years. About a year after his
discharge from Polk, he was sent, at the age of eleven, to Thorn
Hill School on a charge of larceny. He was paroled in less than
three years, returned in less than three months for delinquency and
larceny, and finally discharged two years later. Approximately
fourteen months after his discharge from Thorn Hill, he was sent to
the Pennsylvania Training School at Morganza for breaking and
entering. In two and one-half years, he was paroled, and, in less
than one year, returned as a parole violator. He was discharged
finally about four months later, December 18, 1930, his
twenty-first birthday. On that day, the robbery and attempted
robbery were committed for which petitioner was indicted, pleaded
guilty, and was sentenced to the penitentiary on February 18, 1931,
for a term of five to fifteen years for each offense, the sentences
to run consecutively. These are the sentences attacked by
petitioner. He was paroled on the first sentence, attempted armed
robbery, on August 26, 1942, to enable him to begin serving the
armed
Page 342 U. S. 139
robbery sentence. He was paroled on his second sentence
September 19, 1947, returned as a parole violator April 1, 1949,
and has since been incarcerated in the penitentiary.
In this record and petitioner's allegations in his petition for
habeas corpus to the state courts must be found the "special
circumstances" which would warrant this Court to hold that he had
shown sufficient probable cause why his conviction and sentencing,
on February 18, 1931, were violative of the Due Process Clause.
Petitioner did not allege that, at the time of sentencing, he
was mentally incompetent. His only allegation concerning mental
incompetency is a recital in Paragraph 2 of his petition as
follows: "Your petitioner, a young irresponsible boy, having spent
several years in Polk (because he was mentally abnormal). . . ."
Yet his discharge from Polk was more than ten years before he
entered the plea of guilty now before us.
Petitioner did allege that, when he pleaded guilty to the
robbery indictments, he thought he was pleading guilty to an
offense of breaking and entering, as the police had told him when
he was arrested that that was the charge. However, at the argument
before this Court, it was contended by the state, and not denied,
that the record showed that, at the time he pleaded guilty to the
robbery indictments, petitioner also pleaded guilty to breaking and
entering Leaders' Dry Goods Store, for which he received a
suspended sentence. Petitioner also alleged that he discovered his
mistake for the first time when he was being examined by the
penitentiary's psychology department upon his admission. With that
knowledge, he remained silent for eighteen years, a year and a half
of which time he was on parole.
A continuous life of crime, extending throughout his entire
youth, was the experience of this unhappy boy. One would think that
such a propensity for crime would
Page 342 U. S. 140
or should alert a court to his mental condition. He did not
allege that he was mentally incompetent at the time he was serving
almost nine years in Thorn Hill and Morganza, from 1921 until 1930.
If he had shown any such infirmity, surely the officials in charge
of these two institutions would have had the fact called to their
attention and would have had him sent to a mental institution. The
officials of Pennsylvania correctional institutions had such duty
imposed by statute in 1927, so that the Morganza officials, where
he was confined from 1927 to 1930, clearly had such duty as to
petitioner. Pa.Laws 1927, p. 431, No. 281, Purdon's Pa.Stat.Ann.,
1931, Tit. 50, § 51. This duty was imposed also upon the court
that sentenced him. I cannot believe that the trial court which
accepted his plea in open court would have done so if it had known
or had any intimation that he was mentally defective. I think the
courts of Pennsylvania had a right to assume under all the
circumstances of record, which under Pennsylvania practice was
before them at the time of sentencing and at the disposition of the
rule to show cause in the habeas corpus proceedings, that
petitioner was a mentally competent man of twenty-one years at the
time he was sentenced.* It was not alleged otherwise.
Page 342 U. S. 141
When petitioner entered his plea of guilty to the robbery
indictments on February 18, 1931, did he know he was doing so? He
alleged he did not; that he thought he was pleading guilty to
breaking and entering Leaders' Dry Goods Store, as the police had
told him that was why he was being arrested. Aside from the fact
that he pleaded guilty also to the breaking and entering of
Leaders' and received a suspended sentence thereon, and that he
first made known his error more than eighteen years after he
discovered it, the courts of Pennsylvania, in seeking to determine
from the petition and the answers of the warden and district
attorney whether there was probable cause for discharging him, took
into consideration these further facts of record:
The record revealed that, after petitioner was arrested, he was
presented before a magistrate on an information filed by a police
officer which charged petitioner and two others, separately, with
armed robbery of David Brinn, a grocery store owner, and attempted
armed robbery of Peter Rosella, also a grocery store owner. The
victims appeared at the hearing and testified, together with two
other witnesses. The three defendants were charged in two
indictments with the armed robbery of Brinn and attempted armed
robbery of Rosella, who were in court with several other witnesses,
prepared to testify. Their names were endorsed upon the indictments
as witnesses against the defendants. Petitioner's plea of guilty in
open court to these indictments was also so endorsed.
I think it an allowable judgment for the Pennsylvania courts to
conclude that petitioner's allegations, made eighteen years after
trial, were improbable in the light of the matters of record, that
probable cause did not exist for his discharge, and that the
necessity of a hearing was not indicated. The courts had a right to
assume, in the absence of allegations or record to the contrary,
that petitioner was a mentally competent young man of
twenty-one
Page 342 U. S. 142
years, and that his contention, made eighteen years late, that
he had pleaded guilty to crimes other than he thought he was
pleading to was a bit hard to believe, especially in the absence of
an allegation that he did not commit the offenses charged in the
indictments to which he pleaded guilty. For aught that appears in
his petition, he did commit the offenses -- he alleged only that he
did not plead guilty to them. To me, it appears plain that the
record, on the whole, is against petitioner. Under the practice of
Pennsylvania, petitioner is entitled to the writ of habeas corpus
only when the court is satisfied there is probable cause for it to
issue.
Commonwealth ex rel. McGlinn v. Smith, 344 Pa. 41,
47-48, 24 A.2d 1, 4-5. On this record, it was permissible for the
courts of Pennsylvania to conclude that there was no probable cause
shown why the writ should issue, and that a hearing was not
necessary.
* The majority states that petitioner's allegation of mental
abnormality is
"supported by the penitentiary warden's answer showing that
petitioner had been confined in Polk (a state institution) from
August, 1918, to September, 1920, because he was an
'imbecile.'"
If he were an imbecile, it would seem probable that, in his many
encounters with the courts, they would have observed such low grade
of mentality. An imbecile has next to the lowest grade of
intelligence among mental defectives, "with an intelligence
quotient of from 25 to 49, or a mental age for an adult equivalent
to that of a child of from 3 to 7 years." Fairchild, Dictionary of
Sociology (1944), 149. Petitioner's brief in the Pennsylvania
Superior Court stated that, when he was examined at the
penitentiary upon his admission, he had an IQ of 74.
