Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 10 (1994)

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494

CUSTIS v. UNITED STATES

Opinion of the Court

Due Process Clause, Betts had held, required the appointment of counsel for an indigent defendant in state courts only upon a showing of special circumstances. Id., at 473.

But even before Betts v. Brady was decided, this Court had held that the failure to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant in a federal proceeding not only violated the Sixth Amendment, but was subject to collateral attack in federal habeas corpus. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938). At a time when the underlying habeas statute was construed to allow collateral attacks on final judgments of conviction only where the rendering court lacked "jurisdiction"—albeit a somewhat expansive notion of "jurisdiction," see Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86 (1923)—this Court attributed a jurisdictional significance to the failure to appoint counsel. The Court said:

"If the accused, however, is not represented by counsel and has not competently and intelligently waived his constitutional right, the Sixth Amendment stands as a jurisdictional bar to a valid conviction and sentence depriving him of his life or his liberty. . . . The judgment of conviction pronounced by a court without jurisdiction is void, and one imprisoned thereunder may obtain release by habeas corpus." 304 U. S., at 468.

When the Court later expanded the availability of federal habeas to other constitutional violations, it did so by frankly stating that the federal habeas statute made such relief available for them, without claiming that the denial of these constitutional rights by the trial court would have denied it jurisdiction. See, e. g., Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101, 104-105 (1942) (coerced confession); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953). There is thus a historical basis in our jurisprudence of collateral attacks for treating the right to have counsel appointed as unique, perhaps because of our oft-stated view that "[t]he right to be heard would be, in many

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