Gideon v. Wainwright

***Gideon v. Wainwright***, , is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. The Court decided that if a person is charged with a crime, and they cannot pay for a lawyer, the state has to give them one for free. This case caused the public defender program to be created in the United States. (A public defender is a lawyer who defends clients who cannot pay them.)

## Background
Between midnight and 8:00&nbsp;a.m. on June 3, 1961, someone broke into the Bay Harbor Pool Room in Panama City, Florida. The person broke a door, smashed a cigarette machine and a record player, and stole coins from a cash register. Later that day, a witness said he had seen Clarence Earl Gideon in the pool room at around 5:30 that morning. The witness said Gideon left with a wine bottle and money in his pockets. Based only on this information, the police arrested Gideon and charged him with breaking and entering with  to commit petty larceny. This charge means a person broke into a place, meaning to steal someone else's property. (In Florida, at the time, "petty" larceny meant that the person stole something that was worth less than $50.) Under Florida law, if Gideon was found guilty, he could be put in prison for up to five years.

### Laws about rights to counsel
#### In state courts
In 1961, state courts had to follow the Supreme Court's decision in *Betts v. Brady.*

#### Importance
What this meant was that in 1961, throughout the state of Florida, most defendants did not have lawyers. They had two choices: to plead guilty, or to defend themselves at trial. A Florida lawyer remembers that "[before] 1963, lawyers were likely to appear in Florida courtrooms only for the wealthy." He asked the Supreme Court to review his case "because the 'due process clause' of the fourteenth admendment of the constitution and the fifth and sixth articles of the Bill of rights has been violated" *sic*. Gideon argued that without assigning lawyers to poor defendants, the state of Florida was not giving those defendants due process or equal protection under the laws.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear Gideon's appeal. They had decided to think about whether *Betts v. Brady* should be "reconsidered" (re-thought).

## Supreme Court case
### The legal issue
The basic question the Supreme Court had to answer was if it had to do with the Sixth Amendment. They had already decided that under the Sixth Amendment, everyone accused of a crime in *federal* court had the right to have a lawyer, even if they could not pay for one. Now they needed to decide whether the Sixth Amendment applied to the states like it did to the federal government. In other words, did every person accused of a crime in *state* court have the right to a lawyer?

### Arguments
#### For Gideon
The Supreme Court had assigned Gideon a well-known lawyer from Washington, D.C. named Abe Fortas. (In 1965, Fortas would become a United States Supreme Court Justice.)

Fortas argued that it was impossible for a person to get a fair trial without a lawyer. He argued that under the Fourteenth Amendment's "due process" requirement, the states had to give a person a fair trial before taking away their freedom. By denying Gideon a lawyer, the state of Florida denied him a fair trial and violated his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

#### Against Gideon
A lawyer named Bruce Jacob argued the case against Gideon in front of the Supreme Court. He made a few different arguments.

Jacob argued that the Constitution allows states to make their own rules about the criminal procedure (how to run criminal trials). He talked about federalism  the separation of powers between federal and state governments that is written into the Constitution. By making a rule saying the states always had to give poor defendants free lawyers, the federal government would be over-stepping its powers. The states would be unable to make their own rules, and this would take away a right the Constitution gave to the states.

The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment's right to a lawyer does apply to the states.

Gideon asked for a lawyer named Fred Turner, who had a very good reputation, and the judge agreed. With Turner arguing the case, it took jurors less than an hour to find Gideon not guilty. Gideon was set free that day. This means it applies even to defendants who were convicted before *Gideon* was decided in 1963. In other words, the Court was admitting that defendants should have had the right to counsel all along, even before *Gideon*. The Court decided in *Gideon* that people could not get a fair trial without lawyers; that was just as true for people who were convicted before 1963. These people, too, now deserved new trials, with free lawyers to help them.

, 2006)]]

According to these scholars, one of the biggest problems with today's public defender programs is that they do not get enough money from the government to deal with the number of poor defendants they have to represent. This means:
* Programs cannot hire enough lawyers
* Public defenders have to take on many different cases at a time
** When lawyers have too many cases, they have very little time to work on each case, and they cannot do their jobs as well
* These lawyers are not paid well, and because their jobs are also very , many lawyers do not stay in public defender jobs for long
* Some public defenders have very little experience in criminal law
* Many poor defendants are given free counsel at trial, then later are told they have to pay for the lawyer's services

When public defenders cannot do their jobs well because they have too many cases, have too little experience, or are too , defendants get more severe punishments when they are convicted.

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## Notes
## References