UNITED STATES v. WADE, 388 U.S. 218 (1967) involves a defendant in the
             robbery of a federally insured bank who was placed in a lineup several
             weeks after he had been indicted. The lineup was conducted without notice
             to and in the absence of his counsel. He was identified by two witnesses as
             being the robber at the lineup and the trial and was subsequently convicted
             of the crime. The defendant argues that the lineup violated his Fifth
             Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and his Sixth Amendment
             The question in the case was whether courtroom identifications of an
             accused at trial are to be excluded from evidence because the accused was
             exhibited to the witnesses before trial at a post-indictment lineup
             conducted for identification purposes without notice to and in the absence
             of counsel. The court held that the lineup did not violate the Fifth
             Amendment, but did find that the Sixth Amendment guarantees an accused the
             right to counsel at any critical confrontation by the prosecution at
             pretrial proceedings where the results might well determine his fate and
             where the absence of counsel might impede the right to a fair trial.
             Identification procedures, which had theretofore been treated as a
             purely factual matter left largely for lay jurors to handle, for the first
             time took on constitutional dimensions and created a new per se rule of
             constitution law for identification procedures. The catalyst was the
             determination that a police lineup was deemed to be a "critical stage,"
             thereby entitling an accused who was forced to stand in a lineup to the
             Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel. The rule applies to any
             identification technique and a fortiori to a face-to-face encounter between
             ...