Mr. Chikofsky also stressed "the much larger question of constitutionality" of a law depriving defendants of the right to counsel of their choice.

The decision should prompt courts to think about how to ensure that courtroom atmosphere does not deprive defendants of a fair trial.

Police departments must cleanse their ranks of officers who use their badges as hunting licenses to deprive defendants of due process.

The long, complex trials deprive defendants of a cross-section of jurors who cannot serve for such long periods and deprive them of counsel of their choice because of the large fees required for such long trials, Mr. Lefcourt said.

Last week, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled that the fees in state courts are so low that they deprive defendants of their right to counsel and are therefore unconstitutional.

As the Pentagon was making its final preparations to begin war crimes trials against four detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, two senior prosecutors complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence.

It charges that the state police violated the United States Constitution by depriving defendants of an unfettered right to legal advice and the Federal wiretapping laws by taping other parties without their knowledge.

Such charges are extremely serious here because they are prosecuted under China's state secrets law, which calls for heavy sentences and deprives defendants of virtually all legal rights.

This, in turn, would deprive criminal defendants of the opportunity to argue against increasing their sentences, because other rules of appellate practice forbid parties who file appeals from raising new arguments for the first time in responding to arguments made by the prevailing party in the lower court.

Judge Jack B. Weinstein ruled that the lawyers' fees were so low that they deprived defendants of their right to counsel and were therefore unconstitutional.