Betts v. Brady

Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 (1942), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that denied counsel to indigent defendants prosecuted by a state. The reinforcement that such a case is not to be reckoned as denial of fundamental due process was famously overruled by Gideon v. Wainwright. Background In its decision in Johnson v. Zerbst, the Supreme Court had held that defendants in federal courts had a right to counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. In Powell v. Alabama, the Court had held that state defendants in capital cases were entitled to counsel, even when they could not afford it; however, the right to an attorney in trials in the states was not yet obligatory in all cases as it was in federal courts under Johnson v. Zerbst. In Betts v. Brady, Betts was indicted for robbery and upon his request for counsel, the trial judge refused, forcing Betts to represent himself. He was convicted of robbery, a conviction he eventually appealed to the Supreme Court on the basis that he was being held unlawfully because he had been denied counsel. Betts filed writ of habeas corpus at the Circuit Court for Washington County, Maryland, and claimed that he had been denied counsel. He then filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, the state's ultimate appellate court. All of his petitions were denied. Finally, he filed for certiorari to the Supreme Court. Issue In a 6–3 decision, the Court found that Betts did not have the right to be appointed counsel with Justice Hugo Black emphatically dissenting. In the majority opinion, Justice Owen Roberts stated,