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Page Number: 31.0

14 

GARZA v. IDAHO 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

ment,  as  most  States  adopted  some  kind  of  statutory  or 
constitutional provision providing the accused the right to 
retain counsel.  W. Beaney, The Right to Counsel in Amer-
ican  Courts  14–22  (1955).    In  fact,  at  least  12  of  the  13 
States  at  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution  had  rejected
the  English  common-law  rule,  providing  for  the  right  to
counsel  in  at  least  some  circumstances.    See  Powell,  287 
U. S., at 64–65; id., at 61–64 (surveying the States’ right-
to-counsel  provisions);  see  also  Betts  v.  Brady,  316  U. S. 
455,  465–467  (1942)  (discussing  early  state  constitutional 
provisions), overruled by Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 
335  (1963).  Read  against  this  backdrop,  the  Sixth 
Amendment appears to have been understood at the time
of  ratification  as  a  rejection  of  the  English  common-law
rule  that  prohibited  counsel,  not  as  a  guarantee  of
government-funded counsel.

This understanding—that the Sixth Amendment did not 
require appointed counsel for defendants—persisted in the 
Court’s  jurisprudence  for  nearly  150  years.    See  United 
States v. Van Duzee, 140 U. S. 169, 173 (1891) (“There is, 
however,  no  general  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  govern-
ment [to] retain counsel for defendants or prisoners”); Bute 
v. Illinois, 333 U. S. 640, 661, n. 17 (1948) (“It is probably 
safe  to  say  that  from  its  adoption  in  1791  until  1938,  the 
right  conferred  on  the  accused  by  the  Sixth  Amendment 
. . .  was  not  regarded  as  imposing  on  the  trial  judge  in  a
Federal  court  the  duty  to  appoint  counsel  for  an  indigent 
defendant”).  Nor evidently was there any suggestion that 
defendants  could  mount  a  constitutional  attack  based  on 
their counsel’s failure to render effective assistance.4 

—————— 

4 A defendant could bring a state-law tort action against his attorney. 

As one commentator explained:

“An attorney is bound to exercise such skill, care and diligence in any 
matter entrusted to him, as members of the legal profession commonly 
possess and exercise in such matters. . . . He will be liable if his client’s 
interests suffer on account of his failure to understand and apply those