Publication Date
5-2015
Document Type
Comment
Abstract
The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law.... He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he had a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect. If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a denial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense.
Recommended Citation
Rowe, Lesley
(2015)
"The Guiding Hand of Counsel: Effective Representation for Indigent Defendants in the Cordele Judicial Circuit,"
Mercer Law Review: Vol. 66:
No.
3, Article 7.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr/vol66/iss3/7