Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1026_2c83.pdf
Page Number: 30

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

13 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

A 
The Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel 
grew out of the Founders’ reaction to the English common-
law rule that denied counsel for treason and felony offenses 
with  respect  to  issues  of  fact,  while  allowing  counsel  for
misdemeanors.    See  4  W.  Blackstone,  Commentaries  on 
the  Laws  of  England  349–350  (1769);  1  J.  Stephen,  A 
History of the Criminal Law of England 341 (1883); Powell 
v.  Alabama,  287  U. S.  45,  60  (1932)  (“Originally,  in  Eng-
land,  a  person  charged  with  treason  or  felony  was  denied 
the  aid  of  counsel,  except  in  respect  of  legal  questions 
which  the  accused  himself  might  suggest”).  It  was  not 
until 1696 that England created a narrow exception to this 
rule  for  individuals  accused  of  treason  or  misprision  of
treason—by  statute,  Parliament  provided  both  that  the 
accused  may  retain  counsel  and  that  the  court  must  ap-
point counsel if requested.  7 & 8 Will. 3, ch.3, §1.  Only in
1836 did England permit all criminally accused to appear
and defend with counsel, and even then it did not require
court-appointed  counsel  at  government  expense.    6  &  7 
Will.  4,  ch.  114,  §1.  It  would  be  another  67  years—112 
years  after  the  ratification  of  the  Sixth  Amendment,
and  35  years  after  the  ratification  of  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment—before  England  provided  court-appointed 
counsel for all felonies.  Poor Prisoners’ Defence Act, 1903, 
3 Edw. 7, ch. 38, §1.

The  traditional  common-law  rule  that  there  was  no 
right  to  assistance  of  counsel  for  felony  offenses  received 
widespread  criticism.  As  Blackstone  noted,  this  rule 
“seems  to  be  not  at  all  of  a  piece  with  the  rest  of  the  hu-
mane  treatment  of  prisoners  by  the  English  law.”  4 
Blackstone,  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England,  at
349; see ibid. (“[U]pon what face of reason can that assis-
tance  be  denied  to  save  the  life  of  a  man,  which  yet  is 
allowed  him  in  prosecutions  for  every  petty  trespass”). 
The  founding  generation  apparently  shared  this  senti-