Talk:Clarence Earl Gideon

message: The general tone of the article suggests that Florida wilfully deprived Mr. Gideon of his constitutional rights.  It did not.
Even assuming that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Sixth Amendment applicable to the States, there is nothing in the Sixth Amendment that requires the state to provide a free lawyer.  It merely indicates that the state may not prevent you from presenting your case through a lawyer.  The Sixth Amendment is designed to prohibit a practice, once followed by the Puritans in Boston, of denying a person the right to use a lawyer, even if he paid for one.
The trial judge denied Gideon's request for a free lawyer, because Florida law did not provide for a lawyer in such cases.  Only a person accused of a capital crime was entitled to a lawyer.  In adopting and in adhering to this rule, Florida was merely following a precedent laid down by the United States Supreme Court in 1942.  The United States Supreme Court, which once held that racial segregation was constitutional, and that it was okay to prohibit black people from registering as Democrats, changed its mind, and ruled against Florida.  Good faith reliance on cases decided by the United States Supreme Court apparently is not a defense.
In essence, our form of government is judicial dictatorship, which is no more desirable than any other kind of dictatorship, because the United States Constitution means only what five out of nine justices of the Supreme Court, polled from time to time, say it means.
John Paul Parks (talk) 20:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Suffers from Blatant POV

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I have just modified 2 external links on Clarence Earl Gideon. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130303071530/http://transcribe.archives.gov/content/petition-clarence-gideon to http://transcribe.archives.gov/content/petition-clarence-gideon
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130126041423/http://www.jud14.flcourts.org/CourtReporting/Gideon.pdf to http://www.jud14.flcourts.org/CourtReporting/Gideon.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I only actually read this “wiki” because Clarence was described as an “American Robber” but surely this is the wrong description of him? How ironic! This is my first ever contribution to Wikipedia and I don’t know how I can change that description... but he deserves better! 
Thanks,
Chris  Chrislad108 (talk) 12:35, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The article says he was acquitted, so I think that category is inappropriate.  I'll remove it. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:08, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Robber 

message: This article is not clear at all on geography, since he was born and died in different places.  It jumps immediately to the Supreme Court aspect of the eventual case, without defining the locations of the original crime and arrest, nor describes what means of legal income Gideon had at the time, if any.Starhistory22 (talk) 04:40, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where was the pool hall and the original arrest? 

message: Fred Turner, who was Gideon's lawyer in the re-trial, told Bruce Jacob (the Florida Assistant Attorney General) that Gideon had told him that Joseph A Peel Jr, a judge who was convicted of murder and who was in the same prison or maybe even in the same cell with Gideon helped him write his appeal to the Supreme Court. Some links: Where did Clarence Gideon get the idea that he was entitled to a free lawyer?, Gideon v. Wainwright, 50 Years Later, Did Clarence Gideon Write His Appeal?, Gideon: The Elusive Quest for Poor People's Justice. -kyykaarme (talk) 22:09, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Allegedly Gideon had help in writing the petition