666
Opinion of the Court
cus argues that a rule requiring appointed counsel in every case involving a suspended sentence would unduly hamper the States' attempts to impose effective probationary punishment. A more "workable solution," he contends, would permit imposition of a suspended sentence on an uncounseled defendant and require appointment of counsel, if at all, only at the probation revocation stage, when incarceration is imminent. Fried Brief 18, 23-24.
Amicus observes that probation is "now a critical tool of law enforcement in low level cases." Id., at 22. Even so, it does not follow that preservation of that tool warrants the reduction of the Sixth Amendment's domain that would result from the regime amicus hypothesizes. Amicus does not describe the contours of the hearing that, he suggests, might precede revocation of a term of probation imposed on an uncounseled defendant. See id., at 24 (raising, but not endeavoring to answer, several potential questions about the nature of the revocation hearing amicus contemplates). In Alabama, however, the character of the probation revocation hearing currently afforded is not in doubt. The proceeding is an "informal" one, Buckelew v. State, 48 Ala. App. 418, 421, 265 So. 2d 202, 205 (Crim. App. 1972), at which the defendant has no right to counsel, and the court no obligation to observe customary rules of evidence, Martin v. State, 46 Ala. App. 310, 311, 241 So. 2d 339, 340 (Crim. App. 1970).
More significant, the sole issue at the hearing—apart from determinations about the necessity of confinement, see Ala. Code § 15-22-54(d)(4) (1975)—is whether the defendant breached the terms of probation. See Martin, 46 Ala. App., at 312, 241 So. 2d, at 341 ("All that is required in a hearing of this character is that the evidence be such as to reasonably satisfy the judge in the exercise of his sound discretion that the defendant has violated a valid condition upon which the sentence was suspended." (internal quotation marks omitted)). The validity or reliability of the underlying conviction is beyond attack. See Buckelew, 48 Ala. App., at 421,
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