Foster v. Illinois/Opinion of the Court

This is an original proceeding in the Supreme Court of Illinois by way of writ of error to test the validity of sentences of imprisonment following pleas of guilty. The Supreme Court of Illinois having denied the writ, 394 Ill. 194, 68 N.E.2d 252, we brought the case here, 329 U.S. 712, 67 S.Ct. 630, because of the importance of reviewing convictions where solid doubt is raised whether the requirements of due process have been observed.

On February 22, 1935, the petitioners were sentenced to confinement in the Illinois State Penitentiary, under the Illinois State indeterminate sentence law, after pleading guilty to an indictment charging them with burglary and larceny. Cahill's Ill.Rev.Stats. (1933) c. 38, §§ 65, 796, Ill.Rev.Stat.1933, c. 38, §§ 84, 802. Since the controversy turns on the legal significance of the circumstances under which the pleas of guilty were accepted, it is important to state them according to the record which, for purposes of this proceeding, is binding upon the Illinois Supreme Court and therefore upon this Court. According to the 'Minutes from the Judges Docket,' the defendants Foster and Payne (petitioners here), 'having been furnished with a copy of the Indictment and a list of the Jurors and Peoples Witnesses and are advised of their rights of Trial and of the consequences of an entry of a plea of guilty and being arraigned in open Court for plea to the Indictment says, each for himself That he is guilty of burglary and larceny as charged in the indictment and thereupon the Court advises and admonishes each of said defendants of the consequences of entering such pleas of guilty, and Thereafter each of said defendants still persist in such pleas of guilty * *  * Whereupon said pleas of guilty are received and entered of record.'

'The Court finds the ages of said defendants to be as follows, respectively, Nelson Foster 34 years old, George Payne, alias Elijah Jefferson 48 years. * *  * '

Eleven years later, on February 7, 1946, the petitioners asked the Supreme Court of Illinois for their discharge. Various state grounds were urged and rejected. Our sole concern is with the claim 'that the record in this case fails to show' a compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment insofar as the Due Process Clause of that Amendment requires an accused to have the benefit of counsel.

The considerations that guide the disposition of this case have been canvassed here in a series of recent opinions. The 'due process of law' which the Fourteenth Amendment exacts from the States is a conception of fundamental justice. See Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U.S. 312, 316, 47 S.Ct. 103, 104, 71 L.Ed. 270, 48 A.L.R. 1102; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 151, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288. It is not satisfied by merely formal procedural correctness, nor is it confined by any absolute rule such as that which the Sixth Amendment contains in securing to an accused 'the Assistance of counsel for his defence.' By virtue of that provision, counsel must be furnished to an indigent defendant prosecuted in a federal court in every case, whatever the circumstances. See Palko v. Connecticut, supra, 302 U.S. at page 327, 58 S.Ct. at page 152, 82 L.Ed. 288; Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461, 146 A.L.R. 357; Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 464-465, 62 S.Ct. 1252, 1257, 86 L.Ed. 1595. Prosecutions in State courts are not subject to this fixed requirement. So we have held upon fullest consideration. Betts v. Brady, supra. But process of law in order to be 'due' does require that a State give a defendant ample opportunity to meet an accusation. And so, in the circumstances of a 'particular situation,' assignment of counsel may be 'essential to the substance of a hearing' as part of the due process which the Fourteenth Amendment exacts from a State which imposes sentence. Palko v. Connecticut, supra, 302 U.S. at page 327, 58 S.Ct. at page 152, 82 L.Ed. 288. Such need may exist whether an accused contests a charge agaist him or pleads guilty.

The rationale of this application of due process was first expounded in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158, 84 A.L.R. 527. In following that case our recent decisions have spoken of 'the rule of Powell v. Alabama,' or 'the requirements of Powell v. Alabama,' thereby indicating the essential scope of the doctrine. See Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.S. 471, 476-477, 65 S.Ct. 363, 366, 89 L.Ed. 398; Tomkins v. Missouri, 323 U.S. 485, 488, 65 L.Ed. 370, 372, 89 L.Ed. 407. And so, in every case in which this doctrine was invoked and due process was found wanting, the prisoner sustained the burden of proving, or was prepared to prove but was denied opportunity, that for want of benefit of counsel an ingredient of unfairness actively operated in the process that resulted in his confinement. See Powell v. Alabama, supra, 287 U.S. at pages 51, 53, 56, 57-58, 53 S.Ct. at pages 57, 58, 59, 60, 77 L.Ed. 158, 84 A.L.R. 527; Smith v. O'Grady, 312 U.S. 329, 334, 61 S.Ct. 572, 574, 85 L.Ed. 859; Williams v. Kaiser, supra, 323 U.S. at pages 472, 473, 474, 476, 477, 65 S.Ct. at pages 364, 365, 366, 89 L.Ed. 398; Tomkins v. Missouri, supra, 323 U.S. at pages 486-487, 65 S.Ct. at page 371, 89 L.Ed. 407; House v. Mayo, 324 U.S. 42, 45-46, 65 S.Ct. 517, 519, 520, 89 L.Ed. 739; White v. Ragen, 324 U.S. 760, 762 763, 65 S.Ct. 978, 979, 980, 89 L.Ed. 1348; Rice v. Olson, 324 U.S. 786, 788-789, 65 S.Ct. 989, 990, 991, 89 L.Ed. 1367. Only the other day in a case concerning a charge of first-degree murder against a seventeen-year old defendant, in which we found a deprivation 'of rights essential to a fair hearing,' we took pains to point out that 'The court did not explain the consequences of the plea of guilty, and the record indicates considerable confusion in petitioner's mind at the time of the arraignment as to the effect of such a plea.' De Meerleer v. Michigan, 329 U.S. 663, 664, 67 S.Ct. 596, 597.

In this case there is neither proof nor uncontradicted allegation of any such miscarriage of justice in accepting pleas of guilty. The record of the proceeding plainly imports an observance of due process. In the contemporaneous language of the trial court, the defendants 'are advised of their rights of Trial and of the consequences of an entry of a plea of guilty,' the court 'advises and admonishes each of said defendants of the consequences of entering such pleas of guilty,' and the defendants thereafter still persisting, their pleas 'are received and entered of record.' There was nothing in the common-law record, on the basis of which the Supreme Court of Illinois rendered its decision, to contradict this account of the proceedings in 1935. We thus have in effect the bald claim that, merely because the record does not disclose an offer of counsel to a defendant upon a plea of guilty, although the court before accepting the plea duly advised him of his 'rights of Trial' and of the consequences of such a plea, he is 'deprived of rights essential to a fair hearing under the Federal Constitution.' De Meerleer v. Michigan, supra, 329 U.S. at page 665, 67 S.Ct. at page 597.

We reject such a claim. Most incarcerations are upon pleas of guilty, and probably most such pleas have been made without the felt need of counsel. It is not for us to suggest that it might be desirable to offer to every accused who desires to plead guilty the opportunities for counsel and to enter with formality upon the record the deliberate disclaimer of his need for counsel because of a full appreciation of the meaning of a plea of guilty as expounded by responsible judges. Our duty does not go beyond safeguarding 'rights essential to a fair hearing' by the States. After all, due process, 'itself a historical product,' Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U.S. 22, 31, 43 S.Ct. 9, 67 L.Ed. 107, is not to be turned into a destructive dogma in the administration of systems of criminal justice under which the States have lived not only before the Fourteenth Amendment butfor the ei ghty years since its adoption. It does not militate against respect for the deeply rooted systems of criminal justice in the States that such an abrupt innovation as recognition of the constitutional claim here made implies, would furnish opportunities hitherto uncontemplated for opening wide the prison doors of the land.

Insofar as the sentences in this case are attacked on claims which were not open for consideration on the common-law record which alone was before the Illinois court, see 394 Ill. 194, 68 N.E.2d 252, they are not open here. Carter v. Illinois, 329 U.S. 173, 67 S.Ct. 216. They must be raised by whatever procedure Illinois may provide, or, in default of relief by appropriate Illinois proceedings, by a new claim of denial of due process for want of such relief. See Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791, 98 A.L.R. 406.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, Mr. Justice MURPHY and Mr. Justice RUTLEDGE join, dissenting.