In 1962, Gideon was indicted of a felony (breaking and entering). He was too poor to afford an attorney, but the Florida state court that tried him would not appoint him one. He had to defend himself. Gideon was convicted by the State court and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Gideon appealed his case, arguing that because the state did not appoint him an attorney, he didn’t get a fair trial. The Supreme Court asked itself: Do all citizens have the right to counsel, regardless of whether or not they could afford it? The state of Florida argued that it only has to appoint attorneys when they may be executed for the crime. Florida says “if not, who cares?” Clearly, Gideon cared. He argued that, on the grounds of the sixth and fourteenth amendments, his trial was unfair and his sentence should be overturned. Gideon argued that counsel is required not just for capital cases, but for all cases.
When in state prison, Gideon filed a habeus corpus petition, asking the state to overturn unjust imprisonment. The Florida Supreme Court denied his petition, so Gideon went for the big guns, and filed with the federal supreme court.
Gideon was up against Earl Warren’s court, a liberal activist justice who was also faced with cases like Roe v Wade. The court was very liberal (7:2). After criminal practice revolutions in this court like Griffin v Illinois, Gideon was probably feeling pretty great about himself. Except for the fact that he was in prison.
The vote was unanimously in Gideon’s favor: everyone has the right to counsel. The majority opinion, written by Justice Black, overturned the previous interpretation of the sixth amendment (capital punishment only) and applied it to all felonies, using the wording of the amendment to support this. They then used the fourteenth amendment's incorporation doctrine to make sure Florida and all the other states followed up. Justice Black reminded the court how intricate the legal system can be, and the attorneys are “necessities, not luxuries.” He also criticized America’s adversarial court system, arguing that they defied Americans of their right to be innocent until proven guilty. With this court structure, a lawyer is a lifeline. Justice Douglas wrote a separate opinion from the Majority, reminding the world how cool he thinks incorporation doctrine is. The two concurrence arguments were written by Justices Clark and Harlan, respectively. Clark argued that his reason for overturning Gideon’s sentence was by precedent of Kinsella v Singleton, the court makes no distinction between capital and noncapital cases. Since there is no difference, he argued, everyone has the right to counsel. Justice Harlan, one of only two conservative justices, used a landslide of precedents to say that, in the past, using an argument for “special circumstances” necessitating an appointment of counsel has been dropped in capital cases, and now everyone has the right to counsel. He argues that this should be dropped in noncapital cases to. Harlan doesn't really care about your circumstances. You want the counsel, you got the counsel.
The court thus overturned the precedent of Betts vs Brady, and overturned Gideon’s imprisonment. He was free and his name was cleared! Nine years later, the court would extend the right to counsel to all crimes with punishment of imprisonment.
The decision of the Supreme Court was entirely just. Black’s statement about the legal system depicts the need for lawyers accurately, "even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law." I agree with Harlan that there are no “special circumstances.” The only special circumstance when you are against a court is that you just so happen to be an attorney with the balls to defend yourself. When looking at the diction of the sixth amendment, it says all. Not just capital, just felonies, all. All means all. The united states cannot rewrite the dictionary and decide that all is now a very special English word meaning “basically when we feel like it.” Gideon may have broken the law, but his trial was unfair.
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