Blake v. State

Hall, Judge.

The ground of the defendant’s first plea in bar is that “no counsel was made available to him at the time of his trial in the Recorder’s Court of the City of Savannah,” which was a critical stage of the proceedings against the defendant, and where he pleaded guilty, and that this denied him due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The trial judge heard evidence on this plea in bar. The defendant testified: “I did not have a lawyer in police court and I plead guilty. Nobody offered me one down there; I cannot afford to pay a…