Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18 (1981)
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Description
One of the most important rights protected by the Constitution is the right to raise one's children free from state interference. For this reason, when the state seeks to interfere with parents’ right to custody of their children, one should expect that parents would be given all of the procedural rights guaranteed in the Constitution. In Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18 (1981), a North Carolina trial court permanently terminated a parent's rights to her children after a trial at which she was obliged to represent herself without counsel because she could not afford one. The right to counsel is explicitly guaranteed in the Sixth Amendment, which applies only to criminal cases. When the Supreme Court first ruled that states were obliged to provide indigent defendants in criminal cases with free court-assigned counsel in Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 (1942), it held that the Constitution does not require that every defendant be given counsel. Instead, it held that there may be cases in which the failure to appoint counsel would result in a denial of due process. This ruling meant that courts did not have to appoint counsel but that there was some risk that a conviction would be reversed if the defendant could show that the failure to appoint counsel resulted in an unfair trial. Betts was overruled in the landmark Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). Gideon held that the Betts rule proved to be ineffectual and that the better rule required the automatic appointment of counsel for defendants, at least when they may be subject to a sentence of imprisonment upon conviction.
Source Publication
Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States
Source Editors/Authors
David S. Tanenhaus
Publication Date
2008
Volume Number
3: J—O
Recommended Citation
Guggenheim, Martin, "Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18 (1981)" (2008). Faculty Chapters. 1263.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1263
