Gideon v. Wainwright

On June 3, 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon is arrested in Panama City, Florida. He is fifty years old, a high-school dropout, in and out of prison since his teens, and charged this time with breaking into a pool hall and stealing small amounts of beer, wine, and coins from a vending machine. He asks the court to appoint him a lawyer. Florida law allows appointed counsel only in capital cases. He represents himself, badly. The jury convicts him. He goes to prison, and from there he writes a letter, in pencil, to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Gideon argues that the right to counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment means nothing if it applies only to people who can pay, and that justice cannot survive in a system where the poor face prosecutors trained in the law while standing alone. Florida argues that the Constitution gives states the freedom to design their own criminal procedure, that capital cases involve unique stakes, and that not every defendant needs or wants an attorney.

If Gideon wins, every state must provide counsel to every indigent defendant facing a serious criminal charge, and the cost of running American criminal justice goes up sharply. If Florida wins, the right to counsel remains a right only for those who can afford to exercise it.