Appointment of Counsel for a Defaulting

RULE FORTY-THREE of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure1 provides that a defendant shall be present at every stage of his trial. A corporation, under this rule, "may appear by counsel for all purposes." Acting within the context of this rule, a federal district court has recently decided that it "must ... have power to appoint" an attorney to represent a summoned corporation that has defaulted in appearance. United States v. Crosby2 involved the criminal prosecution of several individuals and a bankrupt corporation on a general conspiracy charge involving questions of fraudulent mail and telephone communications and the sale of unregistered stock in violation of Securities and Exchange Commission regulations& When the corporation defaulted in appearance after summons, the United States moved that "someone be appointed" to represent the corporation. In concluding that it had the power to appoint an attorney in this situation, the district court reasoned that, because the corporation had to be present and could only be present if it were represented by an attorney, "judgment of conviction .. .after a trial where it had not appeared by counsel would therefore be invalid."4 That the court had capacity to render a valid judgment was "not open to question," because, if it could not render judgment, the provision for summoning a corporation would be purposeless. There is no reported precedent for the problem presented in the Crosby case.' Moreover, the question of appointing counsel for a de-