668
Opinion of the Court
an uncounseled conviction.5 Assessing the issue before us in light of actual circumstances, we do not comprehend how the procedures Alabama in fact provides at the probation revocation hearing could bring Shelton's sentence within constitutional bounds.6
Nor do we agree with amicus or the dissent that our holding will "substantially limit the states' ability" to impose probation, Fried Brief 22, or encumber them with a "large, new burden," post, at 680. Most jurisdictions already provide a state-law right to appointed counsel more generous than that afforded by the Federal Constitution. See
5 In any event, the dissent is simply incorrect that our decision today effectively "deprive[s] the State of th[e] option" of placing an uncounseled defendant on probation, with incarceration conditioned on a guilty verdict following a trial de novo. Post, at 677. That option is the functional equivalent of pretrial probation, as to which we entertain no constitutional doubt. See infra, at 670-672, and n. 12.
Regarding the dissent's suggestion that other "means of retesting (with assistance of counsel) the validity of the original conviction" might suffice, post, at 678, n. 3, we doubt that providing counsel after the critical guilt adjudication stage "[would] be of much help to a defendant," for "the die is usually cast when judgment is entered on an uncounseled trial record." Argersinger, 407 U. S., at 41 (Burger, C. J., concurring in result). "[A] large number of misdemeanor convictions take place in police or justice courts which are not courts of record. Without a drastic change in the procedures of these courts, there would be no way" for the defendant to demonstrate error in the original proceeding or reconstruct evidence lost in the intervening period. Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 748 (1994). But we need not here decide whether or what procedural safeguards "short of complete retrial" at the probation revocation stage could satisfy the Sixth Amendment, post, at 678; the minimal procedures Alabama does provide are plainly insufficient.
6 Charging that we have "miraculously divined how the Alabama justices would resolve a constitutional question," post, at 676, the dissent forgets that this case is here on writ of certiorari to the Alabama Supreme Court. That court ruled in the decision under review that Shelton's sentence violates the Sixth Amendment. The Alabama Supreme Court has thus already spoken on the issue we now address, and in doing so expressed not the slightest hint that revocation-stage procedures—real or imaginary— would affect the constitutional calculus.
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