Gideon v. Wainwright

Gideon v. Wainwright , 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, decided in 1963, establishing the right to counsel protected by the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled that if a felony defendant is too poor to hire an attorney to represent him at the trial, the court must appoint an attorney for the defendant.

Factual background

In Florida in 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon was charged with burglary but was too poor to hire an attorney. He asked the court to appoint counsel to represent him at trial, but the court denied that request based on existing law, which did not reqire counsel to be appointed in non-capital cases. So Gideon represented himself at the jury trial, was convicted, and was sentenced to five years of imprisonment. He filed for a writ of habeas corpus, against Wainwright, the corrections director, and claimed that he had not received a fair trial because of the lack of counsel. The Supreme Court of Florida denied his petition (135 So.2d 746), but Gideon took that denial up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Precedents

Prior to this case, there had been several Sixth Amendment right to counsel decisions. In Powell v. Alabama, decided in 1932, the majority opinion by Justice George Sutherland established the right to counsel in capital (that is, death-penalty) cases. In 1938 the court extended the guarantee of counsel to federal felony cases in the case Johnson v. Zerbst. In the 1942 case Betts v. Brady, however, in an opinion penned by Justice Owen Roberts, the court denied the right to court-appointed counsel to non-capital state criminal defendants.

Decision

The court decided unanimously that Gideon had a right to a court-appointed attorney. Betts v. Brady was overruled. The opinion was written by Justice Hugo Black, who was also the author of Johnson v. Zerbst and a dissenter in Betts v. Brady. Justice William Douglas and John Marshall Harlan II wrote separate concurring opinions.

Application to misdemeanor defendants

The Gideon case itself did not address indigent defendants accused of misdemeanors. In 1972, the case Argersinger v. Hamlin, with the majority opinion authored by William Douglas, broadened Gideon's rationale to misdemeanor defendants and established these defendants also have the right to a court-appointed attorney if unable to hire one themselves.

Media

The case was the subject of the 1980 made-for-television movie Gideon's Trumpet.

Sources

• Oyez.org
• Full opinion of the court
• Asgersinger v. Hamlin
• Champion Magazine
• "Gideon's Trumpet" on imdb