How Americans Lost the Right to Counsel, 50 Years After 'Gideon'

[n2doc]

by Andrew Cohen

Next Monday, America will quietly mark one of the most profound anniversaries in its legal history. Exactly 50 years ago, on March 18, 1963, the United States Supreme Court unanimously announced in Gideon v. Wainwright that the Sixth Amendment guarantees to every criminal defendant in a felony trial the right to a lawyer. "Reason and reflection," Justice Hugo Black wrote, "require us to recognize that, in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided to him."

The Gideon decision, heralded in its own time, has profoundly changed America's criminal justice system ever since. In the past half century since the ruling, the constitutional right to counsel has ensured that millions of criminal suspects -- the guilty, the innocent, and the somewhere-in-between -- have been aided by earnest, capable lawyers. The mandate of Gideon has forced prosecutors to be fairer and more honest in their dealings with defendants. It has burdened trial judges with additional pretrial motions. As a result of all of that, in a justice system designed to test evidence rather than seek truth, the Gideon ruling undoubtedly has resulted in more accurate results at trial.

There is, indeed, much to celebrate about Gideon. The story of the case -- that is, the story of Clarence Earl Gideon -- is remarkable in every way. It is also impossible to imagine it taking place in today's world of law and justice. Here was a lowly man, like the Gideon of the Old Testament, who achieved a mighty and mightily unexpected victory on behalf of his fellow citizens. Here was a petty thief in Florida who told a trial judge that he deserved a lawyer, who was convicted and sentenced without one, and who was in the end proven right by the United States Supreme Court.

In Gideon, the justices of the Warren Court reached out eagerly to protect a suspect's fair trial rights; prosecutors around the country urged them to do so; and when Gideon got his second trial, this time with a seasoned lawyer, his quick acquittal struck home the value of the right which had just been recognized. Gideon is famous as Supreme Court precedent, and as popular narrative, because it is such an easy legal story to understand. And because all of us, at one point, may wonder what it feels like to be charged with a crime -- and to be all alone.

more
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/how-americans-lost-the-right-to-counsel-50-years-after-gideon/273433/

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. If the author's premise is true, he should be able to describe it in at least one of the four

paragraphs instead of providing a lengthy history.

If the premise is true and the author cannot describe it in those four paragraphs, he should otherwise be able to clearly describe it in his article.

[enough]

2. k&r (nt)