Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1026_2c83.pdf
Page Number: 32

Cite as:  586 U. S. ____ (2019) 

15 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

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 there-
after, 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. 

B 
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 surround-
ing the trial shocked the conscience of the court and made 
the proceedings a farce and a mockery of justice.”  Diggs v. 
—————— 

rules and principles of law that are well established and clearly defined 
in the elementary books, or which have been declared in adjudged cases
that have been duly reported and published a sufficient length of time
to  have  become  known  to  those  who  exercise  reasonable  diligence  in 
keeping  pace  with  the  literature  of  the  profession.”    T.  Cooley,  Law  of 
Torts *779 (footnotes omitted). 

Thus,  reasonable  choices  not  clearly  foreclosed  by  law  or  precedent 
would apparently permit an attorney to successfully defend against the 
suit.