Appellant
Clarence Earl Gideon
Appellee
Louie L. Wainwright, Director, Division of Corrections
Appellant's Claim
That the Sixth Amendment requires states to provide legal counsel for impoverished criminal defendants charged with serious offenses.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Abe Fortas
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Bruce R. Jacob
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), William J. Brennan, Jr., Tom C.Clark, William O. Douglas, Arthur Goldberg, John Marshall Harlan II, PotterStewart, Earl Warren, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
18 March 1963
Decision
Declaring that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Sixth Amendment right to counsel binding on the states, the Supreme Court unanimously voted to order that Gideon be assigned a court-appointed lawyer and retried.
Significance
Gideon v. Wainwright made an enormous contribution to the so-called "due process revolution" going on in the Court led by Chief Justice Warren. Because of the ruling in this case, all indigent felony defendants--like many others charged with misdemeanors--have a right to court-appointed attorneys.
Clarence Earl Gideon was a drifter who occasionally worked at the Bay HarborPoolroom in Panama City, Florida. On the morning of 3 June 1961, after a patrol officer discovered that the pool hall had been burglarized, eyewitnesses led police to arrest Gideon. He professed his innocence, but two months later,Gideon was put on trial for burglary. A 1942 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Betts v. Brady, which held that states need appoint counsel only to thoseindigent criminal defendants facing the death penalty, was still the law of the land. Gideon defended himself without benefit of legal counsel. Predictably, he was found guilty. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Gideon applied to the Florida Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, asking to be freed because he had been denied his right to counsel. When the state supreme court denied Gideon's petition, he submitted a five-page handwritten appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Warren Court had been lookingfor an opportunity to overturn Betts v. Brady, and it agreed to hear Gideon's appeal. The Court appointed Abe Fortas, one of the best-known appellate lawyers in the country (and later a Supreme Court justice himself) to argue the case.
Court Unanimously Votes to Overturn Betts v. Brady
Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Black stated the rationale for overturning Betts in simple terms. This was for him--and apparently for therest of the Court--a straightforward decision:
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been the vehicle for applying other Bill of Rights guarantees at the state level, again sawservice in the ongoing "due process revolution" being led by Justice Black. After Gideon, every indigent defendant charged with a serious crime instate court (criminal trials are almost invariably heard in state courts) would be appointed legal counsel as required by the Sixth Amendment's guaranteeof the right to a fair trial. The Court soon extended this right, in Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) to misdemeanor defendants sentenced to imprisonment. In 1984, in Strickland v. Washington, the principle first enunciated by the Supreme Court in Gideon was elaborated to include a right toeffective legal representation.
Clarence Gideon was retried on 5 August 1963, in the Panama City Courthouse.This time an experienced trial lawyer, W. Fred Turner, argued his case, and this time Gideon was found innocent. A book about Clarence Gideon's pursuit ofhis constitutional rights, Anthony Lewis' Gideon's Trumpet, was madeinto a Hollywood film. But the true measure of Gideon's victory is not that it makes a compelling narrative, but that its effects are so far-reaching. Most large cities now maintain public defender offices that serve indigent clients like Gideon. In other parts of the country, judges appoint private attorneys to serve as representatives for criminal defendants who cannot afford to pay for their own lawyers. In 1984, the Justice Department estimated that two-thirds of the American population is served by the public defender system.
Related Cases
The Warren Court
Earl Warren, the former governor of California, served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969. Warren's tenure as chief justice is widelyviewed as a period of extraordinary judicial activism, which resulted in landmark Supreme Court cases.
One of the most important cases Warren ever presided over was also one of thefirst cases he presided over as chief justice. The case was Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned segregated public schools as "inherentlyunequal" and in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Warren Court was also responsible for two landmark decisions that protected the rights of the accused in Gideon v. Wainwright and Miranda v.Arizona. In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court threw out a Connecticut law that banned the circulation of birth control information. That ruling would prove critical for the post-Warren Court ruling of Roe v. Wade, which upheld a woman's right to have an abortion.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law, Volume 10. Minneapolis, MN: WestPublishing, 1998.
Clarence Earl Gideon
Appellee
Louie L. Wainwright, Director, Division of Corrections
Appellant's Claim
That the Sixth Amendment requires states to provide legal counsel for impoverished criminal defendants charged with serious offenses.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Abe Fortas
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Bruce R. Jacob
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), William J. Brennan, Jr., Tom C.Clark, William O. Douglas, Arthur Goldberg, John Marshall Harlan II, PotterStewart, Earl Warren, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
18 March 1963
Decision
Declaring that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Sixth Amendment right to counsel binding on the states, the Supreme Court unanimously voted to order that Gideon be assigned a court-appointed lawyer and retried.
Significance
Gideon v. Wainwright made an enormous contribution to the so-called "due process revolution" going on in the Court led by Chief Justice Warren. Because of the ruling in this case, all indigent felony defendants--like many others charged with misdemeanors--have a right to court-appointed attorneys.
Clarence Earl Gideon was a drifter who occasionally worked at the Bay HarborPoolroom in Panama City, Florida. On the morning of 3 June 1961, after a patrol officer discovered that the pool hall had been burglarized, eyewitnesses led police to arrest Gideon. He professed his innocence, but two months later,Gideon was put on trial for burglary. A 1942 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Betts v. Brady, which held that states need appoint counsel only to thoseindigent criminal defendants facing the death penalty, was still the law of the land. Gideon defended himself without benefit of legal counsel. Predictably, he was found guilty. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Gideon applied to the Florida Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, asking to be freed because he had been denied his right to counsel. When the state supreme court denied Gideon's petition, he submitted a five-page handwritten appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Warren Court had been lookingfor an opportunity to overturn Betts v. Brady, and it agreed to hear Gideon's appeal. The Court appointed Abe Fortas, one of the best-known appellate lawyers in the country (and later a Supreme Court justice himself) to argue the case.
Court Unanimously Votes to Overturn Betts v. Brady
Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Black stated the rationale for overturning Betts in simple terms. This was for him--and apparently for therest of the Court--a straightforward decision:
[R]eason and reflection require us to recognize that in our adversary system of justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured afair trial unless counsel is provided for him. This seems to us an obvious truth.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been the vehicle for applying other Bill of Rights guarantees at the state level, again sawservice in the ongoing "due process revolution" being led by Justice Black. After Gideon, every indigent defendant charged with a serious crime instate court (criminal trials are almost invariably heard in state courts) would be appointed legal counsel as required by the Sixth Amendment's guaranteeof the right to a fair trial. The Court soon extended this right, in Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) to misdemeanor defendants sentenced to imprisonment. In 1984, in Strickland v. Washington, the principle first enunciated by the Supreme Court in Gideon was elaborated to include a right toeffective legal representation.
Clarence Gideon was retried on 5 August 1963, in the Panama City Courthouse.This time an experienced trial lawyer, W. Fred Turner, argued his case, and this time Gideon was found innocent. A book about Clarence Gideon's pursuit ofhis constitutional rights, Anthony Lewis' Gideon's Trumpet, was madeinto a Hollywood film. But the true measure of Gideon's victory is not that it makes a compelling narrative, but that its effects are so far-reaching. Most large cities now maintain public defender offices that serve indigent clients like Gideon. In other parts of the country, judges appoint private attorneys to serve as representatives for criminal defendants who cannot afford to pay for their own lawyers. In 1984, the Justice Department estimated that two-thirds of the American population is served by the public defender system.
Related Cases
- Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 (1942).
- Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972).
- Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).
The Warren Court
Earl Warren, the former governor of California, served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969. Warren's tenure as chief justice is widelyviewed as a period of extraordinary judicial activism, which resulted in landmark Supreme Court cases.
One of the most important cases Warren ever presided over was also one of thefirst cases he presided over as chief justice. The case was Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned segregated public schools as "inherentlyunequal" and in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Warren Court was also responsible for two landmark decisions that protected the rights of the accused in Gideon v. Wainwright and Miranda v.Arizona. In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court threw out a Connecticut law that banned the circulation of birth control information. That ruling would prove critical for the post-Warren Court ruling of Roe v. Wade, which upheld a woman's right to have an abortion.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law, Volume 10. Minneapolis, MN: WestPublishing, 1998.
User Comments Add a comment…