endant is unable to employ counsel and is
incapable adequately of making his own defense because of ignorance,
illiteracy, or the like, it is the duty of the court, whether requested
or not, to assign counsel for him as a necessary requisite of due
process of Law. The duty is not discharged by an assignment at such time
or under such circumstances as to preclude the giving of effective aid
in preparation and trial of the case. Under certain circumstances (e.g.,
ignorance and illiteracy of defendants, their youth, public hostility,
imprisonment and close surveillance by military forces, fact that
friends and families are in other States, and that they stand in deadly
peril of their lives), the necessity of counsel is so vital and
imperative that the failure of a trial court to make an effective
appointment of counsel is a denial of due process of law.[819]

By its explicit refusal in Powell _v._ Alabama to consider whether
denial of counsel in criminal prosecutions for less than capital
offenses or under other circumstances[820] was equally violative of the
due process clause, the Court left undefined the measure of the
protection available to defendants; and its first two pertinent
decisions rendered thereafter, contributed virtually nothing to correct
that deficiency. In Avery _v._ Alabama,[821] a State trial court was
sustained in its refusal to continue a murder case upon request of
defense counsel appointed by said court only three days before the
trial, who contended that they had not had sufficient time to prepare a
defense, and in its subsequent rejection of a motion for a new trial
which was grounded in part on the contention that the denial of the
continuance was a deprivation of the prisoner's rights under the
Fourteenth Amendment. Apart from an admission that "where denial of the
constitutional right to assistance of counsel is asserted, its peculiar
sacredness demands that we scrupulously review the record," a unanimous
Court proffered only the following vague appraisal of the application of
the Fourteenth Amendment: "In determining whether petitioner has been
denied his constitutional right * * *, we must remember that the
Fourteenth Amendment does not limit the power of the States to try and
deal with crimes committed within their borders, and was not intended to
bring to the test of a decision of this Court every ruling made in the
course of a State trial. Consistently with the preservation of
constitutio