Coleman v. Alabama

Mr. Justice BRENNAN announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the following opinion.

Petitioners were convicted in an Alabama Circuit Court of assault with intent to murder in the shooting of one Reynolds after he and his wife parked their car on an Alabama highway to change a flat tire. The Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed, . . . and the Alabama Supreme Court denied review, . . . We granted certiorari, . . .

Petitioners . . . argue that the preliminary hearing prior to their indictment was a ‘critical stage’ of the prosecution and that Alabama's failure to provide them with appointed counsel at the hearing therefore unconstitutionally denied them the assistance of counsel.

[. . .]

II.

This Court has held that a person accused of crime ‘requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him,’ . . . and that that constitutional principle is not limited to the presence of counsel at trial. ‘It is central to that principle that in addition to counsel's presence at trial, the 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.’ . . . Accordingly, ‘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 as affected by his right meaningfully to cross-examine the witnesses against him and to have effective assistance of counsel at the trial itself. It calls upon us to analyze whether potential substantial prejudice to defendant's rights inheres in the particular confrontation and the ability of counsel to help avoid that prejudice.’ . . . Applying this test, the Court has held that ‘critical stages' include the pretrial type of arraignment where certain rights may be sacrificed or lost, . . . and the pretrial lineup, . . . where the Court held that the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination includes a right to counsel at a pretrial custodial interrogation. . . .

The preliminary hearing is not a required step in an Alabama prosecution. The prosecutor may seek an indictment directly from the grand jury without a preliminary hearing. . . . The opinion of the Alabama Court of Appeals in this case instructs us that under Alabama law the sole purposes of a preliminary hearing are to determine whether there is sufficient evidence against the accused to warrant presenting his case to the grand jury and, if so, to fix bail if the offense is bailable. . . . The court continued:

‘At the preliminary hearing . . . the accused is not required to advance any defenses, and failure to do so does not preclude him from availing himself of every defense he may have upon the trial of the case. Also Pointer v. State of Texas . . . bars the admission of testimony given at a pretrial proceeding where the accused did not have the benefit of cross-examination by and through counsel. Thus, nothing occurring at the preliminary hearing in absence of counsel can substantially prejudice the rights of the accused on trial.’ . . .

This Court is of course bound by this construction of the governing Alabama law, Kingsley International Pictures Corp. v. Regents of University of State of New York, . . . However, from the fact that in cases where the accused has no lawyer at the hearing the Alabama courts prohibit the State's use at trial of anything that occurred at the hearing, it does not follow that the Alabama preliminary hearing is not a ‘critical stage’ of the State's criminal process. The determination whether the hearing is a ‘critical stage’ requiring the provision of counsel depends, as noted, upon an analysis ‘whether potential substantial prejudice to defendant's rights inheres in the . . . confrontation and the ability of counsel to help avoid that prejudice.’ . . . Plainly the guiding hand of counsel at the preliminary hearing is essential to protect the indigent accused against an erroneous or improper prosecution. First, the lawyer's skilled examination and cross-examination of witnesses may expose fatal weaknesses in the State's case that may lead the magistrate to refuse to bind the accused over. Second, in any event, the skilled interrogation of witnesses by an experienced lawyer can fashion a vital impeachment tool for use in cross-examination of the State's witnesses at the trial, or preserve testimony favorable to the accused of a witness who does not appear at the trial. Third, trained counsel can more effectively discover the case the State has against his client and make possible the preparation of a proper defense to meet that case at the trial. Fourth, counsel can also be influential at the preliminary hearing in making effective arguments for the accused on such matters as the necessity for an early psychiatric examination or bail.

The inability of the indigent accused on his own to realize these advantages of a lawyer's assistance compels the conclusion that the Alabama preliminary hearing is a ‘critical stage’ of the State's criminal process at which the accused is ‘as much entitled to such aid (of counsel) . . . as at the trial itself.’ . . .


III

There remains, then, the question of the relief to which petitioners are entitled. The trial transcript indicates that the prohibition against use by the State at trial of anything that occurred at the preliminary hearing was scrupulously observed. . . But on the record it cannot be said whether or not petitioners were otherwise prejudiced by the absence of counsel at the preliminary hearing. That inquiry in the first instance should more properly be made by the Alabama courts. The test to be applied is whether the denial of counsel at the preliminary hearing was harmless error under Chapman v. California, . . .

We accordingly vacate the petitioners' convictions and remand the case to the Alabama courts for such proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion as they may deem appropriate to determine whether such denial of counsel was harmless error, . . . and therefore whether the convictions should be reinstated or a new trial ordered.

It is so ordered.

Convictions vacated and case remanded with directions.

Mr. Justice BLACKMUN took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.


Mr. Justice BLACK, concurring.

I wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion in Part II of the prevailing opinion that an accused has a constitutional right to the assistance of counsel at the preliminary hearing which Alabama grants criminal defendants. The purpose of the preliminary hearing in Alabama is to determine whether an offense has been committed and, if so, whether there is probable cause for charging the defendant with that offense. If the magistrate finds that there is probable cause for charging the defendant with the offense, the defendant must, under Alabama law, be either incarcerated or admitted to bail. In the absence of such a finding of probable cause, the defendant must be released from custody. . . The preliminary hearing is therefore a definite part or stage of a criminal prosecution in Alabama, and the plain language of the Sixth Amendment requires that ‘(i)n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.’ Moreover, every attorney with experience in representing criminal defendants in a State which has a preliminary hearing similar to Alabama's knows-sometimes from sad experience-that adequate representation requires that counsel be present at the preliminary hearing to protect the interests of his client.

[. . .]

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS.

While I have joined Mr. Justice BRENNAN'S opinion, I add a word as to why I think that a strict construction of the Constitution requires the result reached.

The critical words are: ‘In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.’ As Mr. Justice BLACK states, a preliminary hearing is ‘a definite part or stage of a criminal prosecution in Alabama.’ A ‘criminal prosecution’ certainly does not start only when the trial starts. If the commencement of the trial were the start of the ‘criminal prosecution’ in the constitutional sense, then indigents would likely go to trial without effective representation by counsel. Lawyers for the defense need time to prepare a defense. The prosecution needs time for investigations and procedures to make that investigation timely and telling. As a shorthand expression we have used the words ‘critical stage’ to describe whether the preliminary phase of a criminal trial was part of the ‘criminal prosecution’ as used in the Sixth Amendment. But it is the Sixth Amendment that controls, not our own ideas as to what an efficient criminal code should provide. It did not take nearly 200 years of doubt to decide whether Alabama's preliminary hearing is a part of the ‘criminal prosecution’ within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment. The question has never been reached prior to this case. We experience here the case-by-case approach that is the only one available under our ‘case’ or ‘controversy’ jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution.

If we are to adhere to the mandate of the Constitution and not give it merely that meaning which appeals to the personal tastes of those who from time to time sit here, we should read its terms in light of the realities of what ‘criminal prosecutions' truly mean.

[. . .]

The concurring opinions of Mr. Justice WHITE and Mr. Justice HARLAN are omitted. Additionally, the dissenting opinion of Mr. Chief Justice BURGER is omitted.


Mr. Justice STEWART, with whom The Chief Justice joins, dissenting.

[. . .]

. . .[T]he prevailing opinion holds today that the Constitution required Alabama to provide a lawyer for the petitioners at their preliminary hearing, not so much, it seems, to assure a fair trial as to assure a fair preliminary hearing. A lawyer at the preliminary hearing, the opinion says, might have led the magistrate to ‘refuse to bind the accused over.’ Or a lawyer might have made ‘effective arguments for the accused on such matters as the necessity for an early psychiatric examination or bail.’

If those are the reasons a lawyer must be provided, then the most elementary logic requires that a new preliminary hearing must now be held, with counsel made available to the petitioners. In order to provide such relief, it would, of course, be necessary not only to set aside these convictions, but also to set aside the grand jury indictments, and the magistrate's orders fixing bail and binding over the petitioners. Since the petitioners have now been found by a jury in a constitutional trial to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the prevailing opinion understandably boggles at these logical consequences of the reasoning therein. It refrains, in short, from now turning back the clock by ordering a new preliminary hearing to determine all over again whether there is sufficient evidence against the accused to present their case to a grand jury. Instead, the Court sets aside these convictions and remands the case for determination ‘whether the convictions should be reinstated or a new trial ordered,’ and this action seems to me even more quixotic.

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