government essay
Part A Clarence Gideon was accused of breaking and entering into a Florida poolroom. When Gideon’s case went to trial he could not afford to hire a lawyer. He asked that the court appoint him with one for free, but the judge refused. Gideon did his best to conduct his own defense, but he was found guilty. While he was in prison, Gideon studied law books in order to appeal his case to a number of lower courts before writing a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case. He claimed his trail violated his rights promised in the 6th and 14th amendments. This raised the issue of whether or not the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel was one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth amendment. Gideon’s case was very unique as 21 years prior, the Supreme had already ruled in an almost identical case, Betts vs. Brady, that the denial of counsel to an accused person in a state court did not violate the Sixth nor the Fourteenth Amendment. As the court ruled in Gideon’s favor it further separated the Gideon vs. Wainwright case apart from other Supreme Court cases by reversing its refusal to extend the rule of the Sixth Amendment to the states. Another oddity on the case occurred as justice Black who had written the dissenting opinion in the Bett’s case wrote this time the majority opinion for the Gideon case.