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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page research paper that offers a legal brief and summary concerning this landmark decision of the US Supreme Court. Due to this decision, all defendants are provided with an attorney, as the court will appoint counsel if the defendant cannot afford this service. Bibliography lists 1 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khgid63.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
Florida on June 3, 1961. A cigarette machine and a jukebox had been broken into and change taken from each. A witnessed testified that Gideon was in the Pool hall
around 5:30 that morning and, after the burglary, he was found nearby with a pint of wine and change in his pockets. Gideon, a semi-literate drifter, could not afford a
lawyer, and he asked his trial judgement to appoint one for him, basing his request on the concept that the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution entitles all accused to the
services of a lawyer. The judge denied his request because the case was not a capital crime and "special circumstances" did not apply, leaving Gideon to defend himself. Gideon
was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. While serving his sentence, he began studying law. This led him to file a petition of habeas corpus with the
Supreme Court of Florida, asking that he should be freed because he had been illegally imprisoned, due to the courts failure to honor his Sixth Amendment rights. After the Supreme
Court of Florida rejected his petition, Gideon handwrote a petition for a writ of centiorari to the Supreme Court of the US. The Court allowed him to file it in
forma pauperis, which means that the usual fees for filing such a petition were waived. Issue The question before the Court in Gideon v. Wainwright was whether or not
state trial courts were obligated to appoint lawyers involving indigent defendants in non-capital cases. In a previous decision, Betts v. Brady (1942), the Court had already ruled that indigent defendants
should be supplied with a lawyer in capital cases or when special circumstances applied, such as when complex charges, or incompetence, or illiteracy were factors. Since Gideon had claimed no
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