 In the case of Powell v. Alabama in 1932, the United States Supreme Court held that the court must provide counsel to defendants in capital trials, that is trials where capital punishment was a possible sentence, if the defendants were too poor to afford their own counsel. In Johnson v. Zerbst (1938), the Supreme Court expanded this principle to cover all federal trials, and in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) the Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment, the principle also applied to State courts. More recently, the Supreme Court has recognised the right of people to have counsel at other stages of criminal investigations. For example, the court has affirmed the right of indigent defendants to have counsel provided for them in interrogation after they have been arrested (Miranda v. Arizona), and for line-ups (United States v. Wade).
