In the case "Escobedo v. Illinois", , the Court also decided that suspects have the right to a lawyer when they are being interrogated by the police, even if they have not been charged with a crime yet.
People who go in front of grand juries do not have the right to have a lawyer with them. This is because the Supreme Court does not think of grand juries as "criminal prosecutions." (A grand jury cannot find someone guilty of a crime or punish anyone; they can only decide that a person should be charged with a crime.)
Every defendant has the right to a lawyer without a conflict of interest. Here is an example of a conflict of interest: a lawyer is defending two different people. A client named Smith wants to blame his crime on another client named Jones. A lawyer is supposed to do what is best for their clients. Here, the lawyer cannot do that for both clients. If the lawyer blames Smith's crime on Jones in court, he is hurting Jones. If he does not blame the crime on Jones, he is refusing to defend Smith the way Smith wants. This is not fair to either client. Also, the lawyer cannot do the best possible job for both clients at the same time.
To make sure they get a fair trial, every defendant has the right to a lawyer without a conflict of interest. It does not matter whether the defendant is paying the lawyer, or the lawyer was assigned for free. If a lawyer has a conflict of interest, and it hurts their defense of their client, an appeals court will automatically cancel the defendant's conviction.
Defendants being charged with a crime have the right to be represented by the lawyer they want. However:
If a court violates a defendant's right to counsel of their choice, and the defendant appeals, the appeals court will automatically cancel the defendant's conviction.
Defendants have the right to have a lawyer assigned (appointed) to them for free, if:
The Supreme Court has ruled that Americans have the right to an effective lawyer. For example, if a defendant is charged with a crime, a court cannot appoint just any lawyer. The defendant must be given a lawyer who can try a criminal case, and can defend their client effectively.
The Supreme Court explained what "ineffective assistance of counsel" means in a case called "Strickland v. Washington" (1984). In this case, a defendant was convicted. He appealed, saying that his lawyer did not do a good enough job defending him. The Court ruled that he could only have a new trial if he proved:
If a defendant can prove these things to an appeals court, they have proved that their lawyer was ineffective (not effective). This means they have proved their Sixth Amendment rights were violated. They will then get a new trial with a different lawyer.
In most cases, a defendant being charged with a crime has the right to defend himself. This is called "pro se" representation. It means the defendant has given up their right to have a lawyer. The defendant has decided to act as their own lawyer.
However, a court can rule that the defendant will not be able to give himself a good enough defense. If that happens, the court can rule that the defendant has to have a lawyer.
Americans do not have the right to defend themselves in appeals courts. In these courts, a defendant must have a lawyer.
Rights of Englishmen
The Rights of Englishmen is an assumed group of rights that had its roots in the basic rights granted in the Magna Carta. The idea reached its peak during the British settlement of North America. By this time colonial Englishmen felt they were entitled to certain additional rights and liberties. These were over and above those already granted them by the English Monarchy. One of these perceived rights was the idea of no taxation without representation. This was a grievance of British colonists who believed that they were not directly represented in the British Parliament. They believed that any laws it passed affecting the colonists (such as the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act) were illegal under the Bill of Rights 1689, and were a denial of their rights as Englishmen. This led to the American Revolution and is expressed in the Declaration of Independence as "certain unalienable rights". They stopped thinking of themselves as Englishman and became Americans.
Sodomy laws in the United States
Sodomy laws in the United States were laws that made certain kinds of sexual activity illegal. In the past, there were federal laws against sodomy. Every state also had a sodomy law, even in the 20th century.
Starting in the 1960s, some states began to repeal (throw out) their sodomy laws. In 2003, in a case called "Lawrence v. Texas", the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that sodomy laws were unconstitutional. This means no sodomy law in the United States can be used to charge a person with a crime.
Most sodomy laws in the United States made both oral sex and anal sex illegal. However, state laws did not agree on "who" could not do these things.
Every state law made sodomy between homosexual couples illegal. Other state laws also made sodomy illegal between heterosexual couples, if they were not married. The strictest laws made sodomy illegal in every case, even between married couples.
Some sodomy laws also included bestiality in their definition of "sodomy."
The first sodomy laws in America were created when America was still a colony of the British Empire. In the Jamestown colony (the first permanent settlement in America), sodomy could be punished by execution.
Sodomy could be punished by execution in many of the other American colonies as well. In cases of rape or statutory rape, the victim was often punished also. Sometimes the victim was executed along with their rapist.
Historians are not sure exactly how many people were executed for sodomy in colonial America:
By the time the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, every state in the new United States had laws that treated sodomy as a crime.
Before 1963, every state in the United States had laws against sodomy. The states did change these laws so that sodomy was no longer a capital crime. However, punishments could be as severe as life in prison.
Ethics scholar Richard Weinmeyer writes:
According to the Mattachine Society, one of the oldest gay rights groups in the United States, these were the punishments for breaking sodomy laws in 1964:
In the 1960s, attitudes toward sex became much more liberal in the United States. As this happened, some states began to repeal their sodomy laws. Illinois was the first state to do this, in 1963. In the 1960s and 1970s, seventeen other states repealed their sodomy laws. Another seven states changed their laws to say that sodomy between heterosexual couples was not a crime. These seven states kept laws that made sodomy between homosexual couples a misdemeanor.
However, some states refused to change their laws. In 1986, the United States Supreme Court ruled that sodomy laws were constitutional, and that states could continue to use them.
By 2003, thirty-one of the fifty states had repealed their laws against sodomy. Fifteen states had laws left that made sodomy a crime. Four more had laws that made sodomy between same-sex couples a crime.
In 2003, the United States Supreme Court made a landmark decision in "Lawrence v. Texas". It ruled that Texas's sodomy law was unconstitutional. This ruling meant that no sodomy law in the United States was constitutional or could be used to charge a person with a crime. In other words, it made sexual activity between homosexuals legal in every state in America.
At this time, nineteen states still had sodomy laws that they had not repealed.
As of 2019, a total of 15 states had not repealed their sodomy laws, even though they cannot be used any more because of "Lawrence v. Texas". Twelve of these state laws make both heterosexual and homosexual sodomy illegal:
Three more of these state laws ban homosexual sodomy specifically: Kansas, Kentucky, and Texas.