Opinion ID: 1676965
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: What is a Critical Stage of the Proceedings?

Text: Between 1932 and 1972, the United States Supreme Court steadily expanded the scope of the pretrial right to counsel. This expansion was based primarily on a functional analysis of whether the presence of counsel at a particular stage of the criminal process was necessary to protect the defendant's ultimate interest in a fair trial. See Comment, The Pretrial Right to Counsel, 26 Stanford L.Rev. 399-400 (1974). During this era, the Supreme Court held essentially that whenever the assistance of counsel was necessary for this purpose, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attached and became fully activated; therefore, the state's confrontation of an uncounselled person at such a critical stage constituted a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932), the Court recognized the importance of the assistance of counsel during critical stages prior to trial by reversing the convictions of defendants who had been denied legal assistance until immediately before the commencement of a capital rape trial. The Court found that because of the lack of time for preparation and investigation, the legal assistance provided could not have been effective. Therefore, the Court held that the defendants had been denied due process by the deprivation of counsel during perhaps the most critical period of the proceedings against [them], the period between arraignment and trial. Id. at 57, 53 S.Ct. at 59. Almost thirty years later, the Court used the Powell reasoning to develop a functional critical stages analysis. In Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U.S. 52, 82 S.Ct. 157, 7 L.Ed.2d 114 (1961), the Court held that while arraignment would not necessarily be a critical stage in all jurisdictions, it was in an Alabama capital case because the defendant was required to raise a number of defenses and pleas at the arraignment or lose them permanently. The rationale of this decision was that counsel is constitutionally required at all critical stages in criminal proceedings at which rights may be preserved or lost. Using this analysis, the Court extended an accused's right to counsel to certain critical pretrial confrontations where the results might well settle the accused's fate and reduce the trial to a mere formality. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 224, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1931, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967). E.g., Boyd v. Dutton, 405 U.S. 1, 92 S.Ct. 759, 30 L.Ed.2d 755 (1972) (per curiam) (arraignment); Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970) (preliminary examination); Arsenault v. Massachusetts, 393 U.S. 5, 89 S.Ct. 35, 21 L.Ed.2d 5 (1968) (per curiam) (probable cause hearing at which the defendant pleaded guilty); White v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 59, 83 S.Ct. 1050, 10 L.Ed.2d 193 (1963) (preliminary hearing at which a plea was made). C.f., Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 68 L.Ed.2d 359 (1981) (pretrial court-ordered psychiatric examination); Mempa v. Rhay, 389 U.S. 128, 88 S.Ct. 254, 19 L.Ed.2d 336 (1967) (combination probation-revocation and sentencing hearing). In United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967), the Court enlarged the scope of the right to counsel and indicated that it extends to all pretrial identification confrontations. Although the line-up in that case occurred after the defendant's indictment, the Court expansively indicated that the right to counsel attaches at any critical stage, regardless of when or where it happens or whether adverse judicial criminal proceedings have been initiated: [T]he accused is guaranteed that he need not stand alone against the state at any stage of the prosecution, formal or informal, in court or out, where counsel's absence might derogate from the accused's right to a fair trial.... In sum, the principle of Powell v. Alabama and succeeding cases requires that we scrutinize any pretrial confrontation of the accused to determine whether the presence of his counsel is necessary to preserve the defendant's basic right to a fair trial.... Id. at 226-227, 87 S.Ct. at 1931-32. The Wade Court defined as a critical stage any pretrial procedure in which a meaningful defense or a fair trial could potentially be impaired if an uncounselled defendant were subjected to a confrontation by the state. In succeeding cases, however, the Court retrenched from the language of Wade and limited the critical stages analysis to the period following the commencement of adverse judicial criminal proceedings.