It was that the law of the land in each State, which derives its authority for the inherent and reserved powers of the State, exerted within the limits of those fundamental principles of liberty and justice, which lie at the base of all our civil political institutions. Due process required no particular form. The people could institute new methods of procedures so long as these were in the furtherance of the public good.
Justice Sutherland declared that the “right to have counsel heard had been so accepted by the States that it had become an integral part of due process”. He concluded that the “right to counsel when necessary is the logical consequence from the constitutional right to be heard by counsel.” The cases were reversed and remanded to the lower court.
What the court was saying under due process, is that one of those aspects of afforded liberty as part of Anglo-American criminal justice, (from the prospective of 1932), is that individuals were entitled to the right of effective counsel on the state level in capital cases. Justice Sutherland also applied some of the Six Amendment rights to the States, because the court picks and chooses particular rights.
It does not suggest that every criminal case on the State level, or every felony, has the right to counsel. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions in federal courts. The Supreme Court has applied the protections of this amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Another interesting point is that only once at the early part of the decision, does Justice Sutherland refer to the group as Negroes, and that is the only racial reference in the decision. The court was going out of its way to sort of slap the Southern court’s hand, but was not giving them a fully obvious scolding. On the racial question, regarding the jurors being selective exclusively from the White community, the court stated that it did not have to approach that question, because it was going to rest its decision on the due process right to counsel.
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