ABSTRACT
In Betts v. Brady (1942), the Court ruled that states did not need to appoint counsel for defendants in state-felony cases absent such "special circumstances" as mental disability or a capital charge. The justices deciding Betts were deeply divided about whether assistance of counsel was indispensable to fair trials in noncapital cases. Justice Owen J. Roberts wrote for the Court in Betts that the issue was better resolved by state legislatures but said state judges could appoint defense counsel if they deemed it necessary in the "interest of fairness." Betts was "not helpless," Roberts indicated, but was instead a man in his forties, of ordinary intelligence, and had the ability to represent himself at a trial. During the twenty years following Betts, the Court heard several cases involving "special circumstances" and determined that counsel should have been appointed in virtually all of them.
