Harold Hitz Burton

“ The Illinois rule apparently proceeds from the premise that the average person knows of his right to counsel and resorts to an attorney in case he gets caught in the toils of the law. That view, if logically applied, would not require appointment of counsel in any case-capital or otherwise. For a man charged with murder usually knows whether or not it was his blow or shot that killed the deceased and therefore whether he is unjustly accused. And he certainly knows he is in serious trouble when he is faced with such a charge. ”

“ The reason is that the guilty as well as the innocent are entitled to a fair trial, that a layman without the experience and skill of counsel to guide him may get lost in the intricacies of the law and lose advantages which it extends to every accused, that without expert appraisal of the circumstances surrounding his arrest, detention, arraignment, and conviction the penalties he suffers may be aggravated by his own ignorance or by overreaching of the prosecution or police. ”

“ I think that the Bill of Rights is applicable to all courts at all times. Mr. Justice Black demonstrated in his dissent in Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 68, 71, 67 S.Ct. 1672, 1684, 1686, that a chief purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to protect the safeguards of the Bill of Rights against invasion by the states. ”