gideon v. wainwright

In 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon was arrested for breaking into a pool hall in Florida. Gideon could not afford a lawyer. At his trial, he asked the judge to name one for him. The judge refused. The judge was following Florida law. It required the state to provide lawyers only in death penalty cases. Since Gideon did not face the death penalty, that rule did not apply. Gideon was not well educated and had no training in the law. He did not do a good job of defending himself at his trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. From his cell, Gideon hand-wrote an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In it, he argued that a person’s Sixth Amendment right to an attorney should not depend on being able to afford one. The Court agreed to hear the appeal. In March 1963, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Gideon v.Wainwright. (Louie Wainwright was the head of Florida state prisons.) All nine justices agreed. Justice Hugo Black was the author of the Court’s decision.