[837] 329 U.S. 173 (1946).
[838] Rice v. Olson, 324 U.S. 786 (1945), was distinguished on the ground that the record in the older case contained specific allegations bearing on the disabilities of the accused to stand prosecution without the aid of counsel and the complete absence of any uncontested finding, as in the instant case, of an intelligent waiver of counsel.
Dissenting for himself and Justices Black and Rutledge, Justice Douglas declared that, under the authority of Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.S. 471, 476 (1945), "if * * * [the] defendant is not capable of making his own defense, it is the duty of the Court, at least in capital cases, to appoint counsel, whether requested so to do or not."—329 U.S. 173, 181 (1946). In a separate dissent, Justice Murphy observed that while "legal technicalities doubtless afford justification for our pretense of ignoring plain facts before us," facts which emphasize the absence of any intelligent waiver of counsel, "the result certainly does not enhance the high traditions of the judicial process."—Ibid. 183.
[839] 329 U.S. 663, 665 (1947).
[840] 332 U.S. 134 (1947).
[841] 332 U.S. 145 (1947).
[842] 332 U.S. 134, 136 (1947).—Acknowledging that the decision is in line with the precedent of Betts v. Brady, Justice Black, who was joined by Justices Douglas, Murphy, and Rutledge, lamented that the latter was a "kind of precedent [which he] had hoped that the Court would not perpetuate." Complaining of the loss of certainty occasioned by the Court's refusal to read into the Fourteenth Amendment the absolute right to counsel set out in the Sixth Amendment, Justice Black contends that the fair trial doctrine as enunciated in this and in the Adamson v. California case (see p. [1115]) decided on the same day is "another example of the consequences which can be produced by the substitution of this Court's day-to-day opinion of what kind of trial is fair and decent for the kind of trial which the Bill of Rights guarantees."—Ibid. 139, 140.—In a second dissenting opinion meriting the concurrence of Justices Black, Douglas, and Murphy, Justice Rutledge, who also is of the opinion that the absolute right to counsel granted by the Sixth Amendment should be enjoyed in State criminal trials, insisted that even under the fair trial doctrine, the accused had not been accorded due process.
[843] 332 U.S. 145 (1947).
[844] 332 U.S. 561 (1947).
[845] 332 U.S. 596 (1948).