Powell Vs. Alabama & Peremptory Essay

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IV. Justice Sutherland's Argument (1932)

Justice Sutherland argued that the defendants in the Scottsboro Boys trial were only youth and were illiterate and uneducated. The sole inquiry, according to Sutherland "is whether the Federal Constitution was contravened...to the inquiry whether the defendants were in substance denied the right of counsel, and if so, whether such denial infringes the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." (Justice Sutherland, Powell v. Alabama, 1932)

It is noted that no attempt was made to investigate the guilt or innocence of these defendants and no opportunity to do so was afforded to the defendants by the court. Sutherland states that it is important to consider that the case is one that is a "capital case, where the defendant is unable to employ counsel, and is incapable of adequately making is own defense because of ignorance, feeble mindedness, illiteracy or the like, it is the duty of the court, whether requested or not to assign counsel for him as a necessary requisite of due process of law; and that duty is not discharged by the assignment at such a time or under such circumstances as to preclude the giving of effective aid in the preparation and trial of the case. To hold otherwise would be to ignore the fundamental postulate already adverted to "that there are certain immutable principles of justice which inhere in the very idea of free government which no member of the Union may disregard.

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" (Justice Sutherland, Powell v. Alabama, 1932)

Summary and Conclusion

The importance of the case of Powell v. Alabama is vested in the rights of the individual to counsel in capital cases as these cases are such that the decision of the jury will be passed down with the punishment that decides the life or death of the individual who is defendant in such cases being tried in today's criminal justice courtrooms......

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