[1] In the American judicial system, many states have courts of limited jurisdiction, presided over by a magistrate, a justice of the peace or other non-judicial officer, who hears criminal arraignments and tries petty offenses and small civil cases.

He argued that his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection had been violated because he had been tried and convicted in a court presided over by a judge without legal training.

However, the Kentucky arrangement for dealing with less serious offenses had not been shown to disadvantage the defendant any more or less than trials conducted in a court of general jurisdiction in the first instance, as long as the later was always available.

In regard to the judge's lack of legal training, Burger concluded in reference to a previous line of cases that the use of non-judicial officers to perform judicial functions was permitted insofar as "independent, neutral and detached judgement" was secured.

The appellant's second claim was that the Kentucky statute violated the equal protection clause as it allowed for non-trained judges to preside in some cities of the state and not in others.

Moreover, the Kentucky Court of Appeals had articulated the reasons for this classification scheme, which included varying financial resources of different cities and the power of the state to regulate its internal affairs.

Stewart began by recounting the circumstances of North's conviction, and the constitutional issues it raised: Stewart continued by tracing the development of the right to counsel, which evolved from being afforded only in capital cases (Powell v. Alabama, 1932), to defendants charged with a felony (Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963), and finally also in trials for misdemeanors (Argersinger v. Hamlin, 1972).

This evolution "firmly established that a person who has not been accorded the constitutional right to the assistance of counsel cannot be sentenced to even one day of imprisonment."

This case had been distinguished in the majority opinion as reflecting the need for neutral judgement on part of the judge as opposed to legal training.

"[7] Stewart criticized Burger's citing of the Colten case on the point that the defendant, to vindicate his right of a trial de novo, only had to plead guilty.