198
Souter, J., dissenting
pointed out a possible conflict to the judge; 5 and counsel was attacking the fines with an equal protection argument, which weakened the strategy more obviously in the defendants' interest, of requesting the court to reduce the fines or defer their collection. Id., at 272-273. This was enough, according to the Wood Court, to tell the judge that defense counsel may have been acting to further the owner's desire for a test case on equal protection, rather than the defendants' interests in avoiding ruinous fines or incarceration. Ibid.
What is significant is that, as this Court thus described the circumstances putting the judge on notice, they were not complete until the revocation hearing was finished (nearly
5 The State indicated that defense counsel labored under a possible conflict of interests between the employer and the defendants, but it was not the conflict in issue here, and so, from the Wood Court's perspective, the State's objection, though a relevant fact in alerting the judge like the fact of multiple representation in Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335 (1980), was not sufficient to put the judge on notice of his constitutional duty to enquire into a "particular conflict," id., at 347. State's counsel suggested that in arguing for forgiveness of fines owing to inability to pay, defense counsel was merely trying to protect the employer from an obligation to the defendants to pay the fines. App. A to Brief in Opposition in Wood v. Georgia, O. T. 1979, No. 79-6027, at 14-15, 27-28 (transcript of Jan. 26, 1979, probation revocation hearing). But as to forgiveness of the fines, the interests of the employer and defendants were aligned; the State's lawyer argued to the court nonetheless that counsel's allegiance to the employer prevented him from pressing the employer to honor its obligation to pay, and suggested to the judge that he should appoint separate counsel to enforce it. Id., at 14. The judge did enquire into this alleged conflict and accepted defense counsel's rejoinder that such a conflict was not relevant to a hearing on whether probation should be revoked for inability to pay and that any such agreement to pay fines for violating the law would surely be unenforceable as a matter of public policy. Id., at 14-17. The majority is thus mistaken in its claim that the State's objection sufficed to put the court on notice of a duty to enquire as to the particular conflict of interest to the Wood Court, see ante, at 170-171, n. 3, unless the majority means to say that mention of any imagined conflict is sufficient to put a judge on notice of a duty to enquire into the full universe of possible conflicts.
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