Glasser v. United States

''Glasser v. United States'', 315 U.S. 60 (1942), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on two issues of constitutional criminal procedure. ''Glasser'' was the first Supreme Court decision to hold that the Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment required the reversal of a criminal defendant's conviction if his lawyer's representation of him was limited by a conflict of interest.

Further, ''Glasser'' held that the exclusion of women (other than members of the League of Women Voters who had taken a jury training class) from the jury pool violated the Impartial Jury Clause of the Sixth Amendment, but declined to reverse the other two convictions on this ground for technical reasons. ''Glasser'' is the first majority opinion of the Court to use the phrase "cross-section of the community." ''Glasser'' was also the first jury discrimination case to invoke the Sixth Amendment (rather than Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment).

The facts of ''Glasser'' were unusual as well. According to a contemporary ''Chicago Tribune'' article, it was "the first time federal employees here have been charged with tampering with federal court justice." The five-week trial involved more than 100 witnesses, more than 4,000 transcript pages of testimony and argument, and 228 exhibits. Provided by Wikipedia