Court Opinion

ID: 9426518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:11.664089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:01.421394
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.
Lonnie North was haled into a Kentucky criminal court and there tried, convicted, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment by Judge C. B. Russell. Judge Russell is a coal miner without any legal training or education *340whatever.1 I believe that a trial before such a judge that results in the imprisonment of the defendant is constitutionally intolerable. It deprives the accused of his right to the effective assistance of counsel guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, and deprives him as well of due process of law.2
*341I
A
The reasons why a defendant in a criminal trial needs a lawyer to assist in his defense have nowhere been better put than in the oft-quoted words of Mr. Justice Sutherland's opinion for the Court in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45:
“The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence.” Id., at 68-69.
So it was that, beginning with the capital case of Powell v. Alabama, supra, extending through the felony case of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, and culminating in the misdemeanor case of Argersinger v. Ham*342lin, 407 U. S. 25, the Court’s decisions firmly established that a person who has not been accorded the constitutional right to the assistance of counsel cannot be sentenced to even one day of imprisonment.
But the essential presupposition of this basic constitutional right is that the judge conducting the trial will be able to understand what the defendant’s lawyer is talking about. For if the judge himself is ignorant of the law, then he, too, will be incapable of determining whether the charge “is good or bad.” He, too, will be “unfamiliar with the rules of evidence.”3 And a lawyer for the *343defendant will be able to do little or nothing to prevent an unjust conviction. In a trial before such a judge, the constitutional right to the assistance of counsel thus becomes a hollow mockery — “a teasing illusion like a munificent bequest in a pauper’s will.” Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160, 186 (Jackson, J., concurring).
B
In this case Judge Russell denied a motion for trial by jury, although under Kentucky law North was clearly entitled to a jury trial upon request. Ky. Const. § 11; Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§25.014, 26.400 (1971). And after finding North guilty, Judge Russell proceeded to impose a sentence of imprisonment, although such a sentence was clearly unauthorized by Kentucky law. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 189.520 (2), 189.990 (10) (a) (1971).
But even if it were not possible to demonstrate in a particular case that the lay judge had been incompetent or the trial egregiously unfair, I think that any trial before a lay judge that results in the defendant’s imprisonment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court has never required a showing of specific or individualized prejudice when it was the procedure itself that violated due process of law. “[A]t times a procedure employed by the State involves such a probability that prejudice will result that it is deemed inherently lacking in due process.” Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532, 542-543. See Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723; Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52.
A trial judge is “charged with the duty of insuring that justice, in the broadest sense of that term, is achieved in every criminal trial.” Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806, 839 (Burger, C. J., dissenting). See Geders v. *344United States, 425 U. S. 80; 86-87. Among the critical functions that a trial judge must frequently perform are the acceptance of a guilty plea, Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U. S. 637; the determination of the voluntariness of a confession, Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368; the advising of the defendant of his trial rights, Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238; and the instruction of a jury, Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U. S. 607, 612. A judge ignorant of the law is simply incapable of performing these functions. If he is aware of his- incompetence, such a judge will perhaps instinctively turn to the prosecutor for advice and direction.4 But such a practice no more than compounds the due process violation. See In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136.5
The Kentucky Court of Appeals characterized the kind of trial that took place here as an “absurdity.” The trial, *345in my view, was such an absurdity as to constitute a gross denial of due process of law.6
II
The Court seems to say that these constitutional deficiencies can all be swept under the rug and forgotten because the convicted defendant may have a trial de novo before a qualified judge. I cannot agree.
In Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U. S. 57, the Court made clear that “the State’s trial court procedure [cannot] be deemed constitutionally acceptable simply because the State eventually offers a defendant an impartial adjudication. Petitioner is entitled to a neutral and detached judge in the first instance.” Id., at 61-62. See also Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540 (right to trial by jury is right to a jury in first instance).
The Court would distinguish the Ward case as “directed at the need for independent, neutral, and detached judgment, not at legal training.” Ante, at 337. But surely there can be no meaningful constitutional difference between a trial that is fundamentally unfair because of the judge’s possible bias, and one that is fundamentally unfair because of the judge’s ignorance of the law.7
*346And the Court’s suggestion that a defendant haled before a lay judge can protect his constitutional rights by simply pleading guilty and immediately seeking a trial de novo is wholly unpersuasive. First, this argument assumes without any factual support that the defendant will be informed of his right to a trial de novo.8 Second, the procedure would still necessitate multiple court appearances, at the cost of both delay and an increased financial burden for attorneys’ fees and court costs. Third, such a practice would turn what should be a solemn court proceeding, see Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238, into nothing more than a sham. In short, I cannot accept the suggestion that, as a prerequisite to a constitutionally fair trial, a defendant must stand up in open court and inform a judge that he is guilty when in fact he believes that he is not.
At Runnymede in 1215 King John pledged to his barons that he would “not make any Justiciaries, Constables, Sheriffs, or Bailiffs, excepting of such as know the laws of the land Magna Carta 45. Today, more than 750 years later, the Court leaves that promise unkept.
I respectfully dissent.

 The judge at North’s state habeas corpus hearing concluded: “I think the fact has been established that [Judge Russell is] not a lawyer, he doesn’t know any law, he hasn’t studied any law.” Judge Russell testified that he had only a high school education. He had never received any training concerning his duties as a lay judge. This is not a case, therefore, involving a lay judge who has received the kind of special training that several States apparently provide. See ante, at 333-334, n. 4.
A study of California’s lay judges made in 1972 showed that 37% had no education beyond high school while 13% had even less formal education. Gordon v. Justice Court, 12 Cal. 3d 323, 330 n. 7, 525 P. 2d 72, 76 n. 7. A 1966 survey revealed that only 5% of Virginia’s justices of the peace were college graduates, Note, 52 Va. L. Rev. 151, 177, while in 1958 one-half of West Virginia’s justices had not completed high school, Note, 69 W. Va. L. Rev. 314, 323. In 1969, the Assistant Attorney General of Mississippi told the State’s Judiciary Commission that “33% of the justices of the peace are limited in educational background to the extent that they are not capable of learning the necessary elements of law.” Hearings on Justice of the Peace Courts and Judges before the Mississippi Judiciary Commission (testimony of R. Hugo Newcomb, Sr.), quoted in Comment, 44 Miss. L. J. 996, 1000 n. 31 (1973).

 At least two state courts have held that such a trial violates the United States Constitution. Gordon v. Justice Court, supra; Shelmidine v. Jones, No. 224948 (Utah 3d Jud. Dist., June 3, 1975).
Contemporary studies of American court systems have been unanimous in calling for the elimination of nonlawyer judges. See ABA Commission on Standards of Judicial Administration, Court Organization § 1.21 (1974); National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards & Goals, Task Force Report: Courts, Standard 8.1 (1973); The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, Task Force Report: The Courts 36 *341(1967); Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, State-Local Relations in the Criminal Justice System, Recommendation 21 (1971); Consensus Statement of the National Conference on the Judiciary, 55 J. Am. Jud. Soc. 29, 30 (1971).

 Judge Russell testified that he had not received any training concerning rules of evidence and that he was not familiar with the Kentucky statutes relating to jury trials, with the Kentucky rules of criminal procedure, or with the rights guaranteed to a defendant in a criminal case under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The deposition of a lay magistrate in a South Carolina case provides another illustration of the inadequate legal background of nonlawyer judges:
“Q. What books do you have . . . that deal with the duties of Magistrate?”
Magistrate McLendon: “I got a stack of volume books from the courthouse when I got the job, little red books.
“Q. What books are those sir, do you know the names of them?”
Magistrate McLendon: “No, sir.
“Q. Tell me what your understanding of the Code of Laws is, what is contained in the Code of Laws, as you understand?”
Magistrate McLendon: “Well I never have done any reading in it.
“Q. You never have had occasion to refer to it?”
Magistrate McLendon: “No, sir.” Deposition of Magistrate Robert McLendon, Oct. 15, 1974, p. 110, Frierson v. West, Civ. No. 74-1074 (SC May 15, 1975).
See generally Note, 61 Va. L. Rev. 1454, 1456 (1975); Note, 10 Harv. Civ. Rights — Civ. Lib. L. Rev. 739, 746-755 (1975); Note, 69 W. Va. L. Rev. 314, 323-326 (1967); Comment, 44 Miss. L. J. 996, 1004-1008 (1973); Note, 53 Ore. L. Rev. 411, 428-430, 437 n. 187 (1974).

 Judge Russell conceded that he relied on the city attorney for legal advice:
“Q. Prior to your appointment as City Judge . . . had you had any previous legal experience of any kind?”
Judge Russell: “No, sir.
“Q. Have you had any legal training of any kind since your appointment?”
Judge Russell: “Well, the only thing I can say, if I have any doubt, I just consult with the city lawyer ....
“Q. And when you receive advice from the city attorney, do you follow that advice?”
Judge Russell: “Yes, sir.”
See also Deposition of Magistrate Robert McLendon, Oct. 15, 1974, p. 116 in Frierson v. West, Civ. No. 74-1074, (SC May 15, 1975) (stating that in event of request for jury trial he “would come to Mr. George Stuckey [the county attorney] and find out what I had to do”).

 See Note, 53 Ore. L. Rev. 411, 430 (1974); Note, 61 Va. L. Rev. 1454, 1469-1470, n. 74 (1975); Note, 10 Harv. Civ. Rights! — Civ. Lib. L. Rev. 739, 755 (1975).

 The scarcity of lawyers or legally trained persons in rural areas cannot serve to justify trials such as this. Utah, to cite one example, has managed to devise a constitutionally adequate trial system even though large portions of the State are sparsely populated and 13 of its 29 counties have two or fewer lawyers. See Utah House Bill No. 1, 1975 First Special Session, amending Utah Code Ann. § 78-5-4. See generally Note, 10 Harv. Civ. Rights— Civ. Lib. L. Rev. 739, 763-767 (1975).

 The Court’s reliance on Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U. S. 104, is misplaced. The question in Colten was not whether a trial of the kind challenged here is constitutionally valid, but the quite different question whether a greater sentence can be imposed on a defendant following a trial de novo without violating North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711.

 The record indicates that North was taken to jail immediately after sentencing and obtained his freedom only when the state habeas corpus court on the following day signed a writ ordering his release. It is hardly likely that North would have spent the night in jail if he had been told that he could avoid jail simply by asking for a trial de novo.
The Court also states its assumption that Kentucky police court judges will advise defendants of their right to counsel and that counsel will advise their clients of their right to a trial de novo. See ante, at 335. This assumption is also devoid of support in the present record. Although Judge Russell stated that it was “the standard procedure”' to advise defendants of their right to counsel, he was unwilling to state that he advised North of this right, and North unreservedly testified that he was not so advised.