Court Opinion

ID: 9426384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:44.537145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.609581
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
with whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins, concurring.
I concur in the opinion of the Court. As the Court’s opinion and the dissenting opinion take such divergent views of the case, I write separately to identify specifically the considerations I deem controlling.
Respondent, Harry Lee Williams, was tried while clad in prison issue. Despite differences over the relevance of “compulsion” in this case, the Court opinion and the dissenting opinion essentially agree that a defendant has a constitutional right not to be so tried. The disagreement is over the significance to be attributed to Williams’ failüre to object at trial.
As relevant to this case, there are two situations in which a conviction should be left standing despite the claimed infringement of a constitutional right. The first situation arises when it can be shown that the substantive right in question was consensually relinquished. The other situation arises when a defendant has made an “inexcusable procedural default” in failing to object at a time when a substantive right could have been pro*514tected. Hart, Foreword: The Time Chart of the Justices, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 84, 118 (1959); see American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Post-Conviction Remedies 35-37 (App. Draft 1968).
Williams was represented by retained, experienced counsel. It is conceded that his counsel was fully aware of the “prison garb” issue1 and elected to raise no objection simply because he thought objection would be futile. The record also shows that the state judge who presided at Williams’ trial “had a practice of allowing defendants to stand trial in civilian clothing, if requested . . . .” 364 F. Supp. 335, 343 (1973). It thus is apparent that had an objection been interposed by Williams to trial in prison garb, the issue here presented would not have arisen.
This case thus presents a situation that occurs frequently during a criminal trial — namely, a defendant’s failing to object to an incident of trial that implicates a constitutional right. As is often the case in such situations, a timely objection would have allowed its cure. As is also frequently the case with such trial-type rights as that involved here, counsel’s failure to object in itself is susceptible of interpretation as a tactical choice. Ante, at 507-508.
It is my view that a tactical choice or procedural default of the nature of that involved here ordinarily should operate,2 as a matter of federal law, to preclude *515the later raising of the substantive right.3 We generally disfavor inferred waivers of constitutional rights. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1939); Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 525-526 (1972). That policy, however, need not be carried to the length of allowing counsel for a defendant deliberately to forgo objection to a curable trial defect, even though he is aware of the factual and legal basis for an objection, simply because he thought objection would be futile.4

 Williams’ counsel did not claim, nor indeed could he have claimed, that a new issue was involved.’ Both the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Texas courts had recognized that trial in prison garb could be constitutional error as an impingement upon the presumption of innocence. Ante, at 511-512.

 Even when confronted by such a procedural default, discretion might sometimes be exercised to overturn a conviction on the familiar principles of plain error. See United States v. Indiviglio, 352 F. 2d 276 (CA2 1965).

 Previous cases of this Court make clear that a federal-law bar can be raised to the untimely presentation of constitutional claims. See Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 433-434 (1963); Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443, 451-452 (1965).

 The right involved here is a trial-type right. As a consequence, an attorney’s conduct may bind the client. See Henry v. Mississippi, supra, at 451-452; cf. Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U. S. 1 (1966). The entitlement of courts ordinarily to rely on counsel to advise a defendant and to malee timely assertion of rights even when the validity of a guilty plea is at issue was a factor in McMann v. Richardson, 397 U. S. 759, 766-771 (1970).