Gideon v. Wainwright - Case Brief Page 13.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. The Court decided that if a person is charged with a crime, and they cannot pay for a lawyer, the state has to give them one for free.This case caused the public defender program to be created in the United States. (A public defender is a lawyer who defends clients who cannot pay them.).
The 1942 case, Betts v. Brady the same thing had happed like what was happening to Gideon. “A majority of Justices—six to three—had held that states need not provide attorneys for poor defendants in noncapital crimes” (Sherrow 13). When asked questions by the judge Gideon was unable to answer the properly and defend himself.
Audio Transcription for Oral Argument - January 15, 1963 (Part 2) in Gideon v. Wainwright Audio Transcription for Oral Argument - January 15, 1963 (Part 1) in Gideon v. Wainwright Abe Fortas: He was a man who, by our folklore anyway, and I think perhaps really was our greatest criminal lawyer. He needed a lawyer. He got a lawyer.
The Supreme Court was faced with answering these questions in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright. In June of 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon, a fifty year old petty thief, drifter, and gambler who had spent much of his life in and out of jail was arrested in Panama City Florida.
Audio Transcription for Oral Argument - January 15, 1963 (Part 2) in Gideon v. Wainwright Audio Transcription for Oral Argument - January 15, 1963 (Part 1) in Gideon v. Wainwright Abe Fortas: I've read a great many of the State cases and the lower federal court cases, many as I could find. It is a fascinating inquiry, a fascinating inquiry.
Facts: Clarence Earl Gideon was an unlikely hero. He was a man with an eighth-grade education who ran away from home when he was in middle school. He spent much of his early adult life as a drifter, spending time in and out of prisons for nonviolent crimes.
Gideon v. Wainwright is a Supreme Court case that occurred in 1963 which questioned the defendant’s right of the sixth amendment. If it was not for a man in his prison cell that wrote to the Supreme Court, the United States court systems would not be the same today.