Gideon v. Wainwright

Gideon v. Wainwright
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 15, 1963 Decided March 18, 1963
Full case name	Clarence E. Gideon v. Louie L. Wainwright, Corrections Director
Citations	372 U.S. 335 (more) 83 S. Ct. 792; 9 L. Ed. 2d 799; 5951 U.S. LEXIS 1942; 23 Ohio Op. 2d 258; 93 A.L.R.2d 733;
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, Bay County, Florida Circuit Court (1961); habeas petition denied w/o opinion, sub. nom. Gideon v. Cochrane, 135 So. 2d 746 (Fla. 1961)
Subsequent	On remand, 153 So. 2d 299 (Fla. 1963); defendant acquitted, Bay County, Florida Circuit Court (1963)
Holding
The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is a fundamental right applied to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution's due process clause, and requires that indigent criminal defendants be provided counsel at trial. Supreme Court of Florida reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Arthur Goldberg
Case opinions
Majority	Black, joined by Warren, Brennan, Stewart, White, Goldberg
Concurrence	Clark
Concurrence	Harlan
Concurrence	Douglas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. VI, XIV

Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In it the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Fourteenth Amendment to provide counsel in criminal cases to represent defendants who are unable to afford to pay their own attorneys, extending the identical requirement imposed on federal courts under the Sixth Amendment.

Legal background

The Supreme Court had ruled in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932), the famous case of the Scottsboro Boys, that the Sixth Amendment's Assistance of Counsel Clause included a right to appointed counsel in certain "special circumstances" cases where the defendant faced capital punishment, and that this right was incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment. In Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 (1942), the Court extended Powell's "special circumstances" rule to non-capital cases. Specifically, the Court focused on a case-by-case determination of whether the lack of representation resulted in a denial of due process, thus rendering the trial unfair. Over the next twenty years, the Court heard several more cases and ruled in all of them that, in fact, a lawyer was required. Due to the difficulty of proving the high standard of proving a denial of due process, nearly all such cases involved the death penalty. This view had not changed by the early 1960s.

Facts and prior history

Between midnight and 8:00 a.m. on June 3, 1961, a burglary occurred at the Bay Harbor Pool Room in Panama City, Florida. Someone broke a door, smashed the cigarette machine and a record player, and stole money from a cash register. Later that day, a witness reported that he had seen Clarence Earl Gideon in the poolroom at around 5:30 that morning leaving with a wine bottle and money in his pockets. Based on this accusation alone, the police arrested him and charged him with breaking and entering with intent to commit petty larceny.

Gideon appeared in court and was too poor to afford counsel, whereupon the following conversation took place:

The COURT: Mr. Gideon, I am sorry, but I cannot appoint Counsel to represent you in this case. Under the laws of the State of Florida, the only time the Court can appoint Counsel to represent a Defendant is when that person is charged with a capital offense. I am sorry, but I will have to deny your request to appoint Counsel to defend you in this case.

GIDEON: The United States Supreme Court says I am entitled to be represented by Counsel.

The Florida court declined to appoint counsel for Mr. Gideon, who was forced, therefore, to act as his own counsel and conduct his own defense in court, emphasizing his innocence in the case. Nevertheless, the jury returned a guilty verdict. The court sentenced him to serve five years in the state prison.

From his prison cell at Florida State Prison, making use of the prison library and writing in pencil on prison stationery, Gideon appealed to the United States Supreme Court in a suit against the Secretary to the Florida Department of Corrections, H.G. Cochran. Cochran later retired and was replaced with Louie L. Wainwright). Gideon argued that he had been denied counsel and, therefore, his Sixth Amendment rights, as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, had been violated.

The court assigned him a prominent Washington, D.C. attorney, future Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas of the law firm Arnold Fortas & Porter. Bruce Jacob, who later became Dean of Stetson University College of Law, argued the case for the the respondents.

Supreme Court decision

Gideon's handwritten petition for a writ of cert to the Supreme Court.

The final decision was announced on March 18, 1963; the opinion of the Court was delivered by Justice Hugo Black. The three concurring opinions were written by Justices Clark, Douglas and Harlan. The court specifically praised its previous ruling in Powell v. Alabama. Whether or not the Powell v. Alabama decision applied to non-capital cases had sparked heated debate. Betts v. Brady initially decided that, unless there were special circumstances like illiteracy, stupidity or being in an especially complicated trial, there was no need for a court-appointed attorney. Gideon v. Wainwright overruled Betts v. Brady, which had allowed selective application of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to the states, itself previously binding only in federal cases. Instead, the court held that the right to the assistance of counsel was a fundamental right, essential for a fair trial, thereby emphasizing the procedural safeguards needed for due process of law. In this sense, the meaning is specifically that no one, regardless of wealth, education or class, should be charged with a crime and then be forced to face his accusers in court without the guidance of counsel.

Justice Clark's concurring opinion stated that the Constitution never states whether a case is capital or non-capital, so legal counsel needs to be provided in all cases. Justice Harlan's concurrent opinion stated that the mere existence of a serious criminal charge constituted in itself special circumstances requiring the services of counsel at trial.

The court remanded the case to the Supreme Court of Florida for "further action not inconsistent with this decision". Gideon was then retried with W. Fred Turner serving as his appointed counsel. He was acquitted because the lawyer was able to cast reasonable doubt on the testimony of the main witness against Gideon.

Gideon v. Wainwright was one of a series of Supreme Court decisions that confirmed the right of defendants in criminal proceedings to counsel during trial, on appeal, and in the subsequent cases of Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964) and Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966), even during police interrogation.

Implications

About 2000 individuals convicted in Florida alone were freed as a result of the Gideon decision. Gideon himself was not freed; instead, he got a new trial.

Gideon chose W. Fred Turner to be his lawyer for his second trial. The retrial took place on August 5, 1963, five months after the Supreme Court ruling. Turner, during the trial, picked apart the testimony of eyewitness Henry Cook, and in his opening and closing statements suggested the idea that Cook likely had been a lookout for a group of young men who broke in to steal beer, then grabbed the coins while they were at it. Turner also got a statement from the cab driver who took Gideon from Bay Harbor, Florida to a bar in Panama City, Florida, stating that Gideon was carrying neither wine, beer nor Coke when he picked him up, even though Cook testified that he watched Gideon walk from the pool hall to the phone, then wait for a cab. This testimony completely discredited Cook.

The jury acquitted Gideon after one hour of deliberation.

After his acquittal, he resumed his previous way of life and married again some time later. He died of cancer in Fort Lauderdale on January 18, 1972, at age 61. Gideon's family in Missouri accepted his body and laid him to rest in an unmarked grave. A granite headstone was added later.

Impact on courts

The former arrangement of the "unfair trial" system, where the United States was given a fair amount of latitude in criminal proceedings as long as there were no "shocking departures from fair procedure" was discarded in favor of a firm set of the "procedural guarantees" stemming from previous constitutional amendments. As a result, when Gideon came before the court they decided to reverse Betts and adopted a system of rules that did not require a case-by-case analysis, but instead created the necessary procedure by its very nature. In this way, the case helped to refine stare decisis: when it should be upheld and what standard should case decisions be tested against precedent to achieve a legitimate practicability in the eyes of the Supreme Court and lower courts. This confusion resulted in several new methods practiced by the Supreme Court when overturning a previous ruling to maintain the "...impersonal qualities of the judicial process..." and keep the sense that legal system is without feeling or prejudice and simply applies justice to those who come before it.

Public defender system

Many changes have been made in the prosecution and legal representation of indigent defendants since the Gideon ruling was handed down in 1963. The decision in Gideon created and then expanded public defenders. Immediately following the decision, Florida required that public defenders must work in all sixteen of the state's circuit courts. The need for more public defenders also led to a need to ensure that the defenders are properly trained in legal defense to allow defendants to receive as fair of a case as possible. Several states and counties followed suit. Washington D.C., for instance, is one such city that has created a training program for their public defenders. Public defenders in District of Columbia must receive rigorous training before they are allowed to represent defendants, and they must continue their training in order to remain current and up-to-date. A public defender office in the South Bronx, The Bronx Defenders, has developed a model of public defense called holistic defense. Criminal defense attorneys work on interdisciplinary teams, alongside civil attorneys, social workers, and legal advocates to help clients with all aspects of their case, including collateral consequences to criminal proceedings. In 2010, The Bronx Defenders created the Center for Holistic Defense, which has helped other public defender offices, from Montana to Massachusetts, implement holistic advocacy. Recently the American Bar Association and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association set minimum training requirements, caseload levels, and experience requirements for its lawyers. There is still some uncertainty whether the case loads set upon public defenders give them enough time to sufficiently defend their clients. Some criticize the “meet ‘em and plead ‘em” mindset" where public defense lawyers encourage their clients to simply plead guilty, so as to lesson their own work load, a criticism voiced, by Tanya Greene, an ACLU lawyer, who said that's why 90 to 95 percent of them do plead guilty: “You’ve got so many cases, limited resources, and there’s no relief. You go to work, you get more cases. You have to triage.”

Right to counsel

The Doughty v. Maxwell decision demonstrates the differences between how state and federal governments address the waiver standards of the right to counsel. In this case the Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the decision in Doughty v. Sacks, which held that regardless of Gideon, the defendant waives his or her right to counsel by entering a plea of guilty. Doughty took place in Ohio, which had its own way of interpreting the right to counsel as many states do, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Florida. Pennsylvania and West Virginia also deemed that the right to counsel was waived when a plea of guilty was entered. In Florida, at least before Gideon, the defendant had to request the right to counsel; otherwise, it was automatically waived. This varies a great deal with federal law, which has strict guidelines for waiving the right to counsel. Under federal law, the defendant can only waive his or her right to trial if it is clear that the defendant understands the "charges, the consequences of the various pleas, and the availability of counsel".

See also

• Gideon's Trumpet, a book and TV movie based on this case
• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 372
• Miranda warning

Further reading

• "Gideon's Promise Unfulfilled: The Need for Litigated Reform of Indigent Defense". Harvard Law Review. 113 (8). The Harvard Law Review Association: 2062–2079. 2000. doi:10.2307/1342319. JSTOR 1342319. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
• Uelmen, Gerald F. (1995). "2001: A Train Ride: A Guided Tour of the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel". Law and Contemporary Problems. 58 (1). Duke University School of Law: 13–29. doi:10.2307/1192165. JSTOR 1192165. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Van Alstyne, William W. (1965). "In Gideon's Wake: Harsher Penalties and the 'Successful' Criminal Appellant". Yale Law Journal. 74 (4). The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc.: 606–639. doi:10.2307/794613. JSTOR 794613. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)

• Floyd, John (2012). "Gideon's Great Grandchildren". {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |wolume= and |coauthors= (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

External links

• Text of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) is available from: Findlaw  Justia  LectLaw