Scheduled Maintenance Notice: H2O will be undergoing maintenance on Weds, July 30. Some features may be temporarily unavailable during this period. Thank you for your understanding.

Main Content

Casebook Read Credits
Criminal Procedure Fall 2022
Resource 10 . 1 . 3
28 minutes

Alabama v. Shelton

535 U.S. 654 (2002)

C.E. Field

What about Probation cases?  Alabama did not provide a lawyer for Shelton, an indigent defendant, who pled to a suspended jail sentence and probation.

The Supreme Court holds here that a sentence potentially resulting in jail time may not be imposed without counsel appointed.  (If a probationary sentence does not include jail time, it will not run afoul of Shelton.  For example, Federal probationary sentences are stand-alone...  no suspended jail time.)

Supreme Court of the United States
535 U.S. 654, 152 L. Ed. 2d 888, 122 S. Ct. 1764, SCDB 2001-050, 2002 U.S. LEXIS 3564
No. 00-1214
2002-05-20

This book, and all H2O books, are Creative Commons licensed for sharing and re-use with the exception of certain excerpts. Any excerpts from the Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, and the Model Penal Code are copyright by The American Law Institute. Excerpts are reproduced with permission, not as part of a Creative Commons license.