Cite as: 519 U. S. 102 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
ation the Court has long required when a family association so undeniably important is at stake. We approach M. L. B.'s petition mindful of the gravity of the sanction imposed on her and in light of two prior decisions most immediately in point: Lassiter v. Department of Social Servs. of Durham Cty., 452 U. S. 18 (1981), and Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U. S. 745 (1982).
Lassiter concerned the appointment of counsel for indigent persons seeking to defend against the State's termination of their parental status. The Court held that appointed counsel was not routinely required to assure a fair adjudication; instead, a case-by-case determination of the need for counsel would suffice, an assessment to be made "in the first instance by the trial court, subject . . . to appellate review." 452 U. S., at 32.
For probation-revocation hearings where loss of conditional liberty is at issue, the Lassiter Court observed, our precedent is not doctrinaire; due process is provided, we have held, when the decision whether counsel should be appointed is made on a case-by-case basis. See Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778, 790 (1973). In criminal prosecutions that do not lead to the defendant's incarceration, however, our precedent recognizes no right to appointed counsel. See Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S., at 373-374. Parental termination cases, the Lassiter Court concluded, are most appropriately ranked with probation-revocation hearings: While the Court declined to recognize an automatic right to appointed counsel, it said that an appointment would be due when warranted by the character and difficulty of the case. See Lassiter, 452 U. S., at 31-32.9
Significant to the disposition of M. L. B.'s case, the Lassiter Court considered it "plain . . . that a parent's desire for
9 The Court noted, among other considerations, that petitions to terminate parental rights may charge criminal activity and that "[p]arents so accused may need legal counsel to guide them in understanding the problems such petitions may create." Lassiter, 452 U. S., at 27, n. 3.
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