Page:Gilberto Garza, Jr. v. Idaho.pdf/32

Rh The Court began shifting direction in 1932, when it suggested that a right to appointed counsel might exist in at least some capital cases, albeit as a right guaranteed by the Due Process Clause. Powell, supra, at 71. Soon thereafter, the Court held that the Sixth Amendment secures a right to court-appointed counsel in all federal criminal cases. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 462–463 (1938). And in 1963, the Court applied this categorical rule to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, stating “that in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” Gideon, supra, at 344. Neither of these opinions attempted to square the expansive rights they recognized with the original meaning of the “right… to have the Assistance of Counsel.” Amdt. 6.

After the Court announced a constitutional right to appointed counsel rooted in the Sixth Amendment, it went on to fashion a constitutional new-trial remedy for cases in which counsel performed poorly. The Courts of Appeals had initially adopted a “farce and mockery” standard that they rooted in the Due Process Clause. This standard permitted a defendant to make out an ineffective-assistance claim only “where the circumstances surrounding the trial shocked the conscience of the court and made the proceedings a farce and a mockery of justice.” Diggs v.