Gideon v. Wainwright

Summary

In June 1961 someone broke into the Bay Harbor Poolroom in Panama City, Florida, and took coins from a cigarette machine and a jukebox. Clarence Earl Gideon, a fifty-one-year-old drifter with a record of earlier convictions, was charged with breaking and entering with intent to commit a misdemeanor, a felony under Florida law. At trial he asked the judge to appoint a lawyer, and the judge replied that Florida provided counsel only in capital cases. Gideon answered that the United States Supreme Court said he was entitled to counsel. He defended himself, making an opening statement, cross-examining witnesses and arguing his innocence, but the jury convicted him and he was sentenced to five years. From his prison cell he wrote, in pencil, a petition to the Supreme Court. The obstacle was Betts v. Brady (1942), in which the Court had held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not require states to appoint counsel in every felony case, only where special circumstances such as youth, illiteracy or a complicated charge made a fair trial impossible without one. The Court agreed to reconsider Betts and appointed Abe Fortas, a prominent Washington lawyer, to argue for Gideon. Fortas contended that no layman could have a fair trial against a trained prosecutor and that the special-circumstances rule had proved unworkable. Florida, represented by assistant attorney general Bruce R. Jacob and supported by two other states, defended Betts on grounds of federalism: the states should be free to design their own systems, the Sixth Amendment's text bound only federal courts, and a sweeping ruling would unsettle thousands of convictions. Twenty-two states filed a brief urging that Betts be overruled. The Court was unanimous. Justice Hugo L. Black's opinion found Betts's facts nearly identical to Gideon's and overruled it. Black argued that Betts itself accepted that fundamental guarantees of the Bill of Rights bind the states, but erred in deciding that counsel was not one of them. He pointed to Powell v. Alabama (1932) and other decisions recognizing the right as fundamental, and called Betts an abrupt break with those precedents. Reason and reflection, he wrote, show that in an adversary system a poor defendant cannot be assured a fair trial without a lawyer, since governments hire prosecutors and defendants with money hire the best lawyers they can. He closed with Justice Sutherland's words from Powell about the guiding hand of counsel. The library text gives Black's opinion of the Court; the concurrences of Douglas, Clark and Harlan are not reprinted, and the footnotes were left out. Florida retried Gideon in August 1963. With a local lawyer, W. Fred Turner, to cross-examine the prosecution's chief witness, the jury acquitted him. Florida created a statewide public defender system that year, Congress passed the Criminal Justice Act of 1964 for federal courts, and Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) extended the right to any case resulting in imprisonment. Anthony Lewis told the story in Gideon's Trumpet (1964).

Top Lessons

• Equal before the law

  Black's argument rests on a simple observation: the state always has a lawyer, and defendants with money hire one. A poor man without counsel faces trained opponents alone, and Black concluded that equal justice requires that the state supply a lawyer.

• One prisoner's petition

  Gideon wrote his petition in pencil on prison paper. The Court accepted it, appointed one of the best lawyers in Washington for him, and changed the law of every state. The case shows how the ordinary process of petition can bring a large question before the highest court.

• Case-by-case or a clear rule?

  Betts asked judges to decide in each case whether special circumstances made counsel necessary. Florida valued that flexibility and the states' freedom to decide; Gideon's lawyers argued it produced confusion and unfairness. The choice between flexible standards and bright-line rules runs throughout law.

• The guiding hand

  Justice Sutherland's words in Powell, quoted by Black, describe how even an intelligent layman may be convicted though innocent because he does not know how to establish his innocence. Gideon's acquittal at his second trial, with a lawyer, gave that warning a concrete illustration.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The opinion concerns the right to counsel and the incorporation of the Sixth Amendment, with nothing touching medicine or health.