# Wood v. Georgia

> Supreme Court of the United States · March 4, 1981 · 450 U.S. 261

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428212

## Case

- **Full name:** WOOD Et Al. v. GEORGIA
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** March 4, 1981
- **Citations:** 450 U.S. 261; 49 U.S.L.W. 4218; 101 S. Ct. 1097; 67 L. Ed. 2d 220; 1981 U.S. LEXIS 76
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stevens
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Brennan, BuhgeR, Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens, Stewart, White
- **Cited by:** 1,010 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428212

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a situation in which an owner of an adult theater and bookstore and his employees were represented by the same attorney, who was paid by the employer, and the employees were convicted of distributing obscene materials from the business, may have violated the emplo…
- holding that it was appropriate to consider a conflict issue not raised below because (1) defense counsel might be hesitant to raise it; (2) the government had to have been aware of the error; and (3) the record indicated that there might be such an issue
- finding that the "possibility of a conflict of interest was sufficiently apparent at the time of the revocation hearing to impose upon the court a duty to inquire further" (emphasis in original)
- stating that Supreme Court case law “mandates a re versal when the trial court has failed to make an inquiry even though it `knows or reasonably should know that a particular conflict exists' "

## Opinion text

Justice Stevens,
concurring.
Although I join the Court’s opinion, my view that the potential conflict of interest disclosed by the record requires that the judgment be vacated does not rest on the hypothesis that the petitioners’ employer may have contrived a test case. See ante, at 267-268, 269-270. It rests instead on the likelihood that the state trial court would have imposed a significantly different sentence if it had not been led to believe that the employer would pay the fines.
Independent counsel for these individuals surely would not have permitted the trial judge to impose fines that were manifestly beyond their ability to pay without obtaining an enforceable commitment from the employer. But a lawyer faithfully representing the interest of the employer surely would not make any such commitment gratuitously. The net result of the conflicting interests represented by one lawyer is a manifestly unfair prison sentence imposed on employees of the person who is probably the principal wrongdoer.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428212. Public record. Not legal advice.