696
Opinion of the Court
in Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52, 54 (1961), and White v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 59, 60 (1963) (per curiam), to denote a step of a criminal proceeding, such as arraignment, that held significant consequences for the accused.3 Second, we posited that a similar presumption was warranted if "counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing." Cronic, supra, at 659. Finally, we said that in cases like Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932), where counsel is called upon to render assistance under circumstances where competent counsel very likely could not, the defendant need not show that the proceedings were affected. Cronic, supra, at 659-662.
Respondent argues that his claim fits within the second exception identified in Cronic because his counsel failed to "mount some case for life" after the prosecution introduced evidence in the sentencing hearing and gave a closing statement. Brief for Respondent 26. We disagree. When we
3 In a footnote, we also cited other cases besides Hamilton v. Alabama and White v. Maryland where we found a Sixth Amendment error without requiring a showing of prejudice. Each involved criminal defendants who had actually or constructively been denied counsel by government action. See United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 659, n. 25 (1984) (citing Geders v. United States, 425 U. S. 80, 91 (1976) (order preventing defendant from consulting his counsel "about anything" during a 17-hour overnight recess impinged upon his Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel); Herring v. New York, 422 U. S. 853, 865 (1975) (trial judge's order denying counsel the opportunity to make a summation at close of bench trial denied defendant assistance of counsel); Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U. S. 605, 612- 613 (1972) (law requiring defendant to testify first at trial or not at all deprived accused of "the 'guiding hand of counsel' in the timing of this critical element of his defense," i. e., when and whether to take the stand); Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U. S. 570, 596 (1961) (statute retaining common-law incompetency rule for criminal defendants, which denied the accused the right to have his counsel question him to elicit his statements before the jury, was inconsistent with Fourteenth Amendment); Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U. S. 471 (1945) (allegation that petitioner requested counsel but did not receive one at the time he was convicted and sentenced stated case for denial of due process)).
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