The Uneven Flow

Ideally, the flow of U.S. law should run straight and true. In fact, it has countless twists and turns, often reverses its course according to the personalities and politics of reigning judges. Thus in three cases. the Supreme Court last week overturned or amended its previous decisions.

sbCOUNSEL FOR ALL. By a unanimous vote, the court ruled that the states, under the 14th Amendment, must provide free legal counsel to any person charged with a crime and unable to pay for his own lawyer. It thereby reversed its 1942 decision in Betts v. Brady, in which it held that such aid is required only if the defendant is charged with a crime punishable by death. Justice Hugo Black, one of three dissenters in the 1942 case (all six judges then in the majority have either died or retired), wrote last week's majority opinion: "In our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him. This seems to us an obvious truth."

sbAPPEAL FOR ALL. Amending its long-held principle that state prisoners may not turn to federal courts until all avenues of state appeal have been exhausted, the court ruled that Convicted Murderer Charles Noia could be released from a New York State prison on a federal writ of habeas corpus. Two other men, convicted with Noia in 1942 for the same murder, appealed to the state that they had made confessions under coercion. They were released. But Noia waited until after the state time limit for such an appeal; a lower federal court therefore refused to entertain his petition. The Supreme Court ruled that its doctrine of "exhausting state remedies" did not mean keeping a man in jail because of that sort of procedural default.

sbA VOTE FOR ALL. On four previous occasions, the latest in 1958, the court had in effect declined to upset Georgia's county-unit voting system. Under that system, politicians with rural backing have been able to hold state power even though they failed in winning a popular majority. The system was suspended for last September's primaries after a panel of Federal District Court judges ruled against it. The Supreme Court decision erased the system once and for all. In its opinion, the court held that "the conception of political equality can mean only one thing--one person, one vote."

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