Court
declared without any explanation: "Compare Betts _v._ Brady with
Williams _v._ Kaiser and Tomkins _v._ Missouri."[834] A similar
performance by the Court is also discernible in Rice _v._ Olson,[835] in
which it ruled that a defendant, who pleads guilty to a charge of
burglary, is incapable adequately of making his own defense, and does
not understandingly waive counsel; he is entitled to the benefit of
legal aid, and a request therefor is not necessary. Also, on the basis
of unchallenged facts contradicting a prisoner's allegation that he had
been denied counsel; namely, that after his arraignment and plea of
guilty to a charge of robbery, counsel had noted an appearance for him
two days before the date of sentencing and had actively intervened in
his behalf on the latter date, a majority of the Court, in Canizio _v._
New York,[836] ruled that the right to counsel had not been withheld.

Without mentioning Betts _v._ Brady by name, the Court, in 1946,
returned to the fair trial principle enunciated therein when it held
that no deprivation of the constitutional right to the aid of counsel
was disclosed by the record in Carter _v._ Illinois.[837] That record
included only the indictment, the judgment on the plea of guilty to a
charge of murder, the minute entry bearing on the sentence, and the
sentence, together with a lengthy recital in the judgment to the effect
that when the defendant expressed a desire to plead guilty the Court
explained to him the consequence of such plea, his rights in the
premises, especially, his rights to have a lawyer appointed to defend
him and to be tried before a jury, and the degree of proof required for
an acquittal under a not guilty plea, but that the defendant persisted
in his plea of guilty. Emphasizing that this record was entirely wanting
in facts bearing upon the maturity or capacity of comprehension of the
prisoner, or upon the circumstances under which the plea of guilty was
tendered and accepted, the Supreme Court concluded that no inference of
lack of understanding, or ability to make an intelligent waiver of
counsel, could be drawn from the fact that the trial court did assign
counsel when it came to sentencing.[838] Applying the same doctrine, and
on this occasion at least citing Betts _v._ Brady, the Court, in De
Meerleer _v._ Michigan,[839] unanimously declared that the arraignment,
trial, conviction of murder, and sentence to life imprisonment, all on
the same day, of