Court Opinion

ID: 9429373
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:32.135759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:19.241110
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
This case comes to us from an intermediate Illinois appellate court. It is a case that the Illinois Supreme Court declined to review. Its practical consequences concern the amount of detail that Illinois police officers in the Third Appellate District must include in an affidavit supporting a petition to suspend a driver’s license. In final analysis the only question presented relates to how an Illinois statute is to be implemented in one part of the State. I suspect that the Illinois Supreme Court may have decided not to take this case because it preferred to address the question presented in a case in which both parties would be adequately represented.
The only paper filed in behalf of the losing party in this Court reads, in full, as follows:
Court Clerk;
Re: Illinois vs: Milton D. Batchelder
No: 82-947
In regard to your letter of 3-31-83 pertaining to the above captioned matter.
*1120I have a heart problem and am unemployed.
I do not have the funds to hire an attorney.
Is it possible for the court to appoint me counsel or for the court to rule on the record that is on appeal?
I am unlearned at law and have had little formal education.
Unless the court can give me some help I will not be able to pursue this matter.
This letter written by;
Donald E. Worlow 302 Pontiac Rd.
Marquette Hgts., Ill. 61554
For Milton D. Batchelder
/s/ Milton Batchelder
If a case is important enough to merit a decision on the merits by this Court, I believe it also should be important enough to justify the appointment of counsel to represent the party defending the judgment of the court below. I respectfully dissent from the Court’s summary disposition.