Tagged: defense

“Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law…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 proceeding 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. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect.”

Source: Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 69 (1932).