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The Right To Effective Counsel In Criminal Cases, Ernest G. Kelly, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Under the Constitution of the United States as well as the laws of many states, a defendant in a criminal action is entitled not merely to the formality of representation by any counsel but also to some degree of efficacy in this representation. Determining whether this right to effective counsel has been violated is a difficult problem. One source of difficulty is the potential conflict between two strong public policy considerations: the desire to spare a defendant the injustices which can result from ineffective representation as opposed to the need for finality of judgments and the orderly functioning of the …