authority of the
Uveges Case, accused's failure to request counsel, since it could be
attributed to ignorance of his right thereto, was held not to constitute
a waiver. Moreover, had the accused been granted the protection of
counsel, the latter might have been able to prevent certain prejudicial
rulings; namely, the introduction without objection of considerable
hearsay testimony, the error of the trial judge in converting a
prosecution witness into a defense witness, and finally, the injection
of biased statements into the judge's comments to the jury. And of the
same general pattern is the holding in Palmer _v._ Ashe,[854] another
Pennsylvania case, involving a petitioner who alleged that, as a youth
and former inmate at a mental institution, he was railroaded into prison
for armed robbery without benefit of counsel, on the representation that
he was charged only with breaking and entering. Reversing the State
court's denial of petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus,
the Court remanded the case, asserting that if petitioner's allegations
were proven, he was entitled to counsel. On the other hand, it was held
in Quicksall _v._ Michigan,[855] a State in which capital punishment
does not exist, that a defendant who had received a life sentence on a
plea of guilty entered without benefit of counsel, had "failed to
sustain the burden of proving such disregard of fundamental fairness
* * * as alone would * * * invalidate his sentence," not having
convinced the State court that he was ignorant of his right to counsel,
or that he had requested same, or that the consequences of his plea had
been misrepresented to him. Also, in Gallegos _v._ Nebraska,[856] in
which the petitioner had been convicted of manslaughter on a homicide
charge, a similar conclusion was reached in the face of the petitioner's
claim that the confession on the strength of which he was convicted had
been obtained from him by mistreatment, prior to the assignment of
counsel to him. Said the Court: "The Federal Constitution does not
command a State to furnish defendants counsel as a matter of course.
* * * Lack of counsel at State noncapital trials denies federal
constitutional protection only when the absence results in a denial to
accused of the essentials of justice."[857]

By way of summation, the Court in Uveges _v._ Pennsylvania[858] offered
the following comment on the conflicting views advanced by its members
on this issue of right to c