March 18th marked the 59th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, which guarantees the right to counsel. But more needs to be done.
Here’s a bit of the back story:
Clarence Earl Gideon ran away from home when he was in middle school. With his eighth-grade education, he spent most of his adult life drifting from place to place, in and out of prison for petty or nonviolent crimes. He was charged in Florida with breaking and entering with the intent to commit a misdemeanor. It sounds strange, but that was a felony under Florida law.
The case came up for trial and Gideon showed up without a lawyer. He asked the court to appoint an attorney, because he could not afford one. The judge denied the request because Florida law only permitted assigned counsel for indigents in capital offense cases. So, Clarence represented himself, was found guilty, and sentenced to five years in prison.
He appealed, on his own, filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Florida Supreme Court. He argued that denial of counsel violated the Constitution. The Florida high court disagreed. Did Gideon give up? Hell no! He filed a handwritten petition to the United States Supreme Court!
The high court agreed to hear the case on the issue of whether right to counsel was guaranteed under the 6th Amendment to state court defendants in non-capital cases. A prior decision, Betts v Brady (1942) held that the refusal to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant charged with a felony in state court did not violate the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause.
The Gideon Court agreed to hear the case, unanimously overruled Betts v Brady, and held that the 6th Amendment’s guarantee of counsel is essential to a fair trial and applies to the states via the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Justice Hugo Black stated that “noble ideal of fair trials before impartial tribunals . . . cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accuses without a lawyer . . .” In other words, rich and poor cannot be equal under the law if only the rich can afford competent counsel.
This is one of the most important decisions in SCOTUS history. Please check out the petition displayed above. It is a copy of the actual handwritten petition for a writ of certiorari. Robert Kennedy had this to say about the Gideon decision:
"If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon had not sat down in prison with a pencil and paper to write a letter to the Supreme Court; and if the Supreme Court had not taken the trouble to look at the merits in that one crude petition among all the bundles of mail it must receive every day, the vast machinery of American law would have gone on functioning undisturbed. But Gideon did write that letter; the court did look into his case; he was re-tried with the help of competent defense counsel; found not guilty and released from prison after two years of punishment for a crime he did not commit. And the whole course of legal history has been changed."
And the course of legal history has been changed . . . this is no overstatement, folks. Clarence Earl Gideon was an inspiring, brave and historic defendant, and this was one of the most epic, landmark decisions in the history of United States jurisprudence.
In my lifetime (and the lifetime of many other Americans alive today) citizens did not have a constitutional right to counsel. They had to represent themselves in courtrooms all over this country and against opponents with significantly higher education and skill. How could prior courts have determined this to be a fair process?
Problem resolved, right? Wrong.
The modern version of Gideon is the denial of state funding for qualified public defenders in many states in our country. Overworked, underfed, tenacious and caring public defenders ply their trade in courtrooms all over this land—they do a marvelous job with limited resources.
March 18th also was National Public Defenders Day honoring public defenders and this landmark SCOTUS decision. As I write this, a former public defender, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is seeking confirmation as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.
In my humble opinion, 59 years later, our country should give Clarence Earl Gideon an anniversary present, confirm Judge Jackson and fully fund an indigent right to counsel. Everyone deserves the right to have quality counsel in a criminal case. Only then will all citizens be truly equal under the law
Mark M. Bello is an attorney and award-winning author of the Zachary Blake Legal Thriller Series, ripped-from-the headlines, realistic fiction that speak truth to power and champion the rights of citizens in our justice system. These novels, dedicated to the social justice movement, are not only enjoyable, they educate, spark discussion and inspire readers to action. For more information, please visit www.markmbello.com. Mark also hosts the Justice Counts podcast with Lean to the Left editor & publisher Bob Gatty, presenting bi-weekly interviews focused on social justice.