In Wood v. Georgia, 450 U.S. 261 (1981), three defendants had been convicted of distributing obscene materials and placed on probation. The defendants had all been represented by an attorney hired by their employer. Their probation was later revoked. The employer's attorney represented them in the revocation hearing. The employer had promised the defendants that he would pay the fines imposed by the trial court when they were put on probation. The motion to revoke probation was filed because neither the defendants nor their employer paid the fines. The record indicated that the employer had an interest in creating equal protection jurisprudence favorable to him. The attorney's strategy in representing the employer's interest rather than the defendants' interest in obtaining leniency indicated that the attorney was actively representing the employer's interests and not those of the defendants. The defendants did not object to their attorney's conflict, but the State made the trial court aware of the conflict. Id. at 265-67. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on an equal protection question but was unable to address it because the Court could not be sure that counsel was not influenced in his basic strategic decisions by the employer's interests. Id. at 264-65. As a result, the Court remanded the case for the trial court to determine whether an actual conflict of interest existed. Id. at 273-74. The trial court was made aware of facts that "strongly suggested" a conflict of interest existed but it failed to determine whether there actually was a conflict. (Wood v. Georgia, supra, 450 U.S. at p. 273.) Because the Supreme Court could not determine, based on the record before it, whether an actual conflict existed, it vacated the judgment and remanded the matter with instructions that the trial court hold a hearing to determine whether a conflict of interest existed at the relevant time. (Ibid.) In sum, three codefendants, while employed at the same adult theatre and bookstore, were convicted of distributing obscene materials. They were represented by the same lawyer who was retained and paid by their employer. At their probation revocation hearing, the Supreme Court observed "the trial court must have known that it had imposed disproportionately large fines--penalties that almost certainly were increased because of an assumption that the employer would pay the fines, and the court did know that petitioners" counsel had been provided by that employer and was pressing a constitutional attack rather than making the arguments for leniency that might well have resulted in substantial reductions in, or deferrals of, the fines." Id. at 266-68, 272-73. The Supreme Court determined that based upon the record in the case, there was a clear "possibility of a conflict of interest . . . sufficiently apparent at the time of the revocation hearing to impose upon the court a duty to inquire further." Id. at 272.