Significance: This ruling was one of several key Supreme Court decisions establishing free legal help for those who could not otherwise afford representation in court. The decision stated that to deny a defendent such help was a violation of his or her constitutional rights.
Background: Clarence Earl Gideon was accused of breaking into and robbing a Florida poolroom. Gideon could not afford to hire a lawyer for the trial, and the judge refused to supply him with one for free. Gideon unsuccessfully conducted his own defense, and the jury found him guilty. Gideon appealed his case to the Florida Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that the lower court’s denial of a court-appointed lawyer violated his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Decision: This case was argued on January 15, 1963, and decided on March 18, 1963, by a vote of 9 to 0. Justice Hugo Black spoke for the unanimous Court, which ruled in Gideon’s favor. The Court agreed that the Sixth Amendment (which protected a citizen’s right to have a lawyer for his or her defense) applied to the states because it fell under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, the states were required to provide legal aid to defendants in criminal cases who could not afford it.
Excerpt from the Opinion of the Court: “[I]n our adversary [oppositional] 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 for him. . . . Governments, both state and federal, quite properly spend vast sums of money to establish machinery to try defendants accused of crime. Lawyers to prosecute are everywhere deemed [considered] essential to protect the public’s interest in an orderly society. Similarly, there are few defendants charged with crime, few indeed, who fail to hire the best lawyers they can get to prepare and present their defenses. That government hires lawyers to prosecute and defendants who have the money hire lawyers to defend are the strongest indications of the widespread belief that lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries. . . . From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on . . . safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals [courts] in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.”
