Clarence Earl Gideon
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| Clarence Earl Gideon | |
|---|---|
 Clarence Earl Gideon, circa 1961 | |
| Born | August 30, 1910 Hannibal, Missouri |
| Died | January 18, 1972 (aged 61) Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
Clarence Earl Gideon (August 30, 1910 – January 18, 1972) was a poor drifter accused in a Florida state court of felony theft. His case resulted in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright, holding that a criminal defendant who cannot afford to hire a lawyer must be provided with a lawyer at no cost. At Gideon's first trial, he represented himself, and he was convicted. After the Supreme Court ruled that the state had to provide defense counsel for the indigent, Florida retried Gideon. At his second trial, which took place in August 1963 with a lawyer representing him and bringing out for the jury the weaknesses in the prosecution's case, Gideon was acquitted.
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[edit]Early life
Gideon was born in Hannibal, Missouri, on August 30, 1910, and his father (Charles Roscoe Gideon) died when he was three. His mother was Virginia Gregory Gideon. Gideon quit school after eighth grade and ran away from home, living as a homeless drifter. By the time he was sixteen, Gideon had begun compiling a petty crime profile.
Gideon spent a year in a reformatory for burglary before finding work at a shoe factory. At age 18, he was arrested in Missouri and charged with robbery, burglary, and larceny. Gideon was sentenced to 10 years but released after three, in 1932, just as the Great Depression was beginning.
Gideon spent most of the next three decades in poverty. He served some more prison terms at Leavenworth, Kansas for stealing government property; in Missouri for stealing, larceny and escape; and in Texas for theft.
Between his prison terms Gideon was married four times. The first one ended quickly, but the fourth to a woman named Ruth Ada Babineaux (in October, 1955) lasted. They settled in Orange, Texas, in the mid-1950s, and Gideon found irregular work as a tugboat laborer and bartender until he was bedridden by tuberculosis for 3 years.
In addition to three children that Ruth already had, Gideon and Ruth had three children, born in 1956, 1957 and 1959: the first two in Orange, the third after he had moved to Panama City, Florida. The six children later were taken away by welfare authorities. Gideon started working as an electrician in Florida, but began gambling for money because of his low wages. Gideon did not serve any more time in jail until 1961.
[edit]Conviction and Gideon v. Wainwright
On June 3, 1961, $5 in change and a few bottles of beer and soda were stolen from Bay Harbor Pool Room, a pool hall/beer joint that belonged to Ira Strickland, Jr. Strickland also alleged that $50 was taken from the jukebox.[citation needed] Henry Cook, a 22-year-old resident who lived nearby, told the police that he had seen Gideon walk out of the joint with a bottle of wine and his pockets filled with coins, and then get into a cab and leave.
Gideon was arrested in a tavern and, being too poor to pay for counsel, was forced to defend himself at his trial after being denied a lawyer by his trial judge, Robert McCrary, Jr.. On August 4, 1961, Gideon was tried and convicted of breaking and entering with intent to commit petty larceny, and on August 25, five days before his 51st birthday, Gideon was given the maximum sentence by Judge McCrary, which was five years in prison.
Gideon, then in jail, studied the American legal system and came to the conclusion that Judge McCrary had violated his constitutional right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment, applicable to the State of Florida through the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He then wrote to an FBI office in Florida and next to the Florida Supreme Court, but was denied help. Then in January 1962, he mailed a five-page petition to the Supreme Court of the United States asking the nine justices to consider his complaint. The Supreme Court, in reply, agreed to hear his appeal. Originally, the case was called Gideon v. Cochran.
The Gideon v. Cochran case was argued on January 15, 1963. Abe Fortas was assigned to represent Gideon. Bruce Jacob, the Assistant Florida Attorney General, was assigned to argue against Gideon. Fortas argued that a common man with no training in law could not go up against a trained lawyer and win, and that "you cannot have a fair trial without counsel." Jacob argued that the issue at hand was a state issue, not federal; the practice of only appointing counsel under "special circumstances" in non-capital cases sufficed; that thousands of convictions would have to be thrown out if it were changed; and that Florida had followed for 21 years "in good faith" the 1942 Supreme Court ruling in Betts v. Brady. The hearing ended three hours and five minutes after it began. (The case's original title, Gideon v. Cochran, was changed to Gideon v. Wainwright after Louie L. Wainwrightreplaced H. G. Cochran as the director of the Florida Division of Corrections, a fact made known to the Supreme Court clerk by Jacob). The Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9-0) in Gideon's favor in a landmark decision on March 18, 1963.[1]
[edit]Second trial
About 2,000 unjustly convicted people in Florida alone were freed as a result of the Gideon decision; Gideon himself was not freed. He instead got another 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 shot people 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 inPanama 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.[2]
[edit]Later life and legacy
After his acquittal, he resumed his previous way of life and married again some time later. He died of cancer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on January 18, 1972, at age 61. Gideon's family in Missouri accepted his body and buried him in an unmarked grave. A granite headstone was added later.
Robert F. Kennedy remarked about the case, "If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon had not sat down in prison with a pencil and paper to write a letter to the Supreme Court; and if the Supreme Court had not taken the trouble to look at the merits in that one crude petition among all the bundles of mail it must receive every day, the vast machinery of American law would have gone on functioning undisturbed. But Gideon did write that letter; the court did look into his case; he was re-tried with the help of competent defense counsel; found not guilty and released from prison after two years of punishment for a crime he did not commit. And the whole course of legal history has been changed."[3]
[edit]Portrayal on film
Clarence Earl Gideon was portrayed by Henry Fonda in the 1980 made-for-television film Gideon's Trumpet, based on Anthony Lewis' book. The film was first telecast as part of theHallmark Hall of Fame anthology series, and co-starred Jose Ferrer as Abe Fortas, the attorney who pleaded Gideon's right to have a lawyer in the Supreme Court. Fonda was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Gideon.
Gideon v. Wainwright
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Gideon v. Wainwright | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||
| Argued January 16, 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; | |||||
| Prior history | 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 history | On remand, 153 So. 2d 299 (Fla. 1963); defendant acquitted, Bay County, Florida Circuit Court (1963) | |||||
| Argument | Oral argument | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is a fundamental right applied to the states via theFourteenth Amendment's due process clause, and requires that indigent criminal defendants be provided counsel at trial. Supreme Court of Florida reversed. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
| ||||||
| 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 the case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who are unable to afford their own attorneys.
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[edit]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 capital cases, and that this right asincorporated 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 if the lack of representation effected a denial of due process, thus rendering the trial unfair. Over the next twenty years, the Court heard several more cases and in all of them ruled that, in fact, a lawyer was required. Due to the difficulty of proving the high standard of a due process error, nearly all such cases involved the death penalty. This view had not changed by the early 1960s.
[edit]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 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.
Gideon was forced, therefore, to act as his own counsel and conduct a defense of himself in court, emphasizing his innocence in the case. Nevertheless, the jury returned a guilty verdict, sentencing 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 Supreme Court in a suit against the Secretary to the Florida Department of Corrections, H.G. Cochran (who later retired and was replaced with Louie L. Wainwright). He 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, Abe Fortas of the law firm Arnold Fortas & Porter, a future Supreme Court justice. Bruce Jacob argued the case for respondents.
[edit]Supreme Court decision
The final decision was announced on 18 March 1963; the opinion of the Court was delivered by Justice Hugo Black. The three concurring opinions were written by Justices Clark, Douglas and Harlan.
In it, 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 concurrent opinion stated that the Constitution never says whether a case is capital and 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.
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.
[edit]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.[1]
[edit]Impact on courts
The former arrangement of upholding the “fair trial” system, where the state was given a fair amount of latitude in criminal proceedings as long as there were no “shocking departures from fair procedure” was quickly being discarded in favor of a firm set of the "procedural guarantees” stemming from previous constitutional amendments. As a result, when Gideoncame before the court they decided to reverse Betts and took upon a system of rules that did not require a case-by-case analysis, but instead created the necessary procedure by its very nature.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
[edit]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.[4] 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.[5] Another program in the Bronx in New York City requires public defenders to undergo training and provides defendants with “holistic training.”[5] 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.[5]
[edit]Right to counsel
Among the states, 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."[6]
