On August 4, 1961 a poor 50-year-old man named Clarence Earl Gideon was arrested in Panama City, Florida after being accused of breaking and entering into the Bay Harbour pool hall and stealing money from the hall's vending machines. Gideon, could not afford a lawyer himself so he requested that an attorney be appointed to represent him. He had to defend himself in a Florida court because the judge in the case refused to appoint him a free lawyer because Florida law says they only appoint lawyers for poor defendants charged with capital offenses. The jury found Gideon guilty and was charged in Florida state court with a felony and sentenced five years in prison. Gideon wrote to the Florida Supreme Court and they denied his petition. Then he …show more content…
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9-0) in Gideon's favor in a landmark decision on March 18, 1963. Almost 2,000 convicted people in Florida were freed as a result of the Gideon decision. Gideon himself was not freed 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. The Sixth Amendment states that, “The accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” The Warren Court extended an unprecedented array of rights to criminal defendants, including the right to an attorney during questioning, the right to remain silent during arrest and questioning, and the right to be informed of these rights. From Florida State Prison, he filed an appeal seeking vindication of his rights by the Supreme Court. It was at that point that Mr. Gideon caught a lucky break: his assigned counsel on appeal was Abe Fortas of the firm Arnold, Fortas & Porter, who would later become a Supreme Court justice. The U.S. Supreme Court held that criminal defendants in state courts, who could not afford their own legal counsel, had to be provided such counsel free of charge. This rule arose from the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and was held to apply to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The right to counsel previously existed in various forms for many years in federal court. After Gideon, it was brought to cover all state courts as well. The Court held that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of counsel is a fundamental right essential to a fair trial and, as such, applies the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In overturning Betts, Justice Black stated that “reason and reflection require us to recognize that in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person hauled into court, who is too poor