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GIDEON v. WAINWRIGHT, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) (GIDEON v. COCHRAN, 372 U.S. 335 (1963))

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Course Requirements of BUS 303: BUSINESS LAW University of Maine At Farmington FALL 2011

Due Date: Monday, 21 November 2011 Please Note: Submittal Time is of the Essence Instructor: Dr. Thomas A. Maroney The case GIDEON v. WAINWRIGHT, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), initially GIDEON v. COCHRAN, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), is of great importance because it challenged and overturned

the twenty one year holding of the case on precedent BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942), granting citizens the right to counsel in non-capital cases at the state level. The indigent one Clarence Earl Gideon was a convicted felon charged with a non-capital felony, that of the theft of money from a cigarette machine and jukebox, a six-pack of beer, some Coke and a bottle of wine from the Bay Harbor Poolroom in Panama City, Florida. When appearing in the Circuit Court of the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida before Judge Robert L. MrCrary, Jr. on August 4, 1961 he proclaimed before the court that he was not ready to go on trial because he did not have counsel and lacking the sufficient funds with which he might procure counsel he requested that the Court appoint counsel to represent him in the trail. This request was denied by the court on the grounds that under Florida State Law the only time the Court was required to appoint counsel to represent a Defendant was when that person was charged with a capital offense. Being unfamiliar with the law and so unaware of the case BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942), Gideon was acting under the assumption that the United States Supreme Court had said he was entitled to be represented by counsel. Unbeknownst to him, Gideon had no right to counsel under the 1942 decision in BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942). At this time, the Constitution only guaranteed free counsel to indigent defendants in State criminal cases where there were also special circumstances which would prevent a fair trial, a point which was emphasized and re-affirmed by the Supreme Court in the cases subsequent to BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942). Upon losing his case at the state level in the Supreme Court of Florida and being sentenced to five years jail time in Florida State Prison, Raiford, Gideon applied to and was the denied by the Florida Supreme Court for a Writ of Habeas Corpus. If granted, this Writ of

Habeas Corpus would have freed him from prison on the grounds that he was illegally imprisoned, in his own mind he was illegally imprisoned because he had not been provided the legal counsel which he felt entitled to. Meeting the requirement that criminal cases be brought before the Supreme Court within 90 days of the lower court decision, Gideon filed his case to the Supreme Court in forma pauperis. His petition included a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari Directed to the Supreme Court State of Florida asking the Court to hear his case on the grounds that his conviction violated the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no state shalldeprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. His belief was that to try a poor man for a felony without providing counsel for him was to deprive him of due process of law; twenty years prior in BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) this very same contention over the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment was rejected by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had previously found that it had to power to review final judgements or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, this minimizes the level of resentment of State Judges and Officials towards the Supreme Court due to undue meddling. As Gideons case worked through all the lower courts at the state level, ending with his being tried in the Florida State Supreme Court, his case was under the Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. They were then free to decide whether or not to address the question he presented and providing that decision was affirmative, which it was, to decide whether or not to overturn BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942). At the Supreme Court Level, it is the unvarying practice of the Court to appoint a lawyer for any impoverished prisoner whose petition

for review has been granted and who requests counsel, counsel Gideon of all people would not be one to deny. The lawyer appointed to Gideon by the Supreme Court was a Washington lawyer named Abe Fortas, of the law firm of Arnold Fortas & Porter, whose privilege it then became to successfully prove the nine Supreme Court of the United States, unanimous or very close to is preferred when precedents may be overturned, that BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942). The core fundamental premise of BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) was that given the lack of special circumstances, which Gideon did not claim to have, that would present the defendant from being able to present their case effectively and have a fair trial they should not need to be provided with legal counsel. This assumption was found to be erroneous, for in the cases following the BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) decision, not only were there multiple instances in which the Supreme Court stepped in, on appeal, and overturned the State decision after finding special circumstances, but also it was noted that the number of appeals by prisoners more than tripled in that 20 year time span. Not only did this chew up time at the Federal level in sorting through more paperwork, a lot of which was unintelligible or fantastic due to the lack of legal knowledge on part of the prisoners in question, it also frustrated those individuals on the State level leaving them with the feeling that the Supreme Court was undermining them, and exercising its power of judicial review with too much frequency. Another reason that the BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) holding and the special circumstances rule did not work was that the job at the State level was not clearly defined, and just what were to be viewed as special circumstances was left to the Supreme Court to decide on a case-by-case basis. Neither efficient, nor effective in resolving legal controversies.

Therefore GIDEON v. WAINWRIGHT, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) provided the Supreme Court Justices with the perfect opportunity to let go of BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) and the headache that it brought with it. Indeed when the Attorney operating on the Behalf of the State of Florida Bruce R. Jacob attempted to petition to the Attorney Generals of other States to submit an Amicus Curiae Brief stating that they did not wish for BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) to be overturned the resulting effect was to the contrary. Many states did not even respond to his request, and those few that did stated that they already had at the state level laws in effect providing legal counsel for indigents in all cases criminal. Edward J. McCormack, Jr., Attorney General of Massachusetts felt the need for BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) to be overturned so strongly that he rallied together 22 states in total, although it should be noted that New Jersey did file to be the 23rd state but missed the deadline and dropping the number back to 22, to submit to the Supreme Court of the United States and Amicus Curiae brief on the behalf of Gideon for the overturning of BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942). In closing I would like to add that following the overturning of BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) at the Supreme Court, Clarence Earl Gideon was later retried in Florida and due to his insistence on a local lawyer who knew the parties and witnesses involved, his sentence was reversed. Additionally, one of the key factors in the BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) decision it was shown by Abe Fortas that although Gideon did a decent job of trying to represent himself in court, cross-referencing witnesses and the like, without the aid of counsel it fell to the judge to attempt to guide him in this case. Though the Judge acted to the best of his knowledge in helping Gideon during the case, it is not the job nor the expertise of the Judge to act in this manner and one can not sit on both sides of the courtroom. It was seen that Gideon

would have been very much benefited by counsel, and lost his case due to the lack of it. Here was a case without any special circumstances in which the witness was a capable man and yet still was not able to sufficiently defend himself in the courtroom. This new perspective proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the special circumstances rule of BETTS v. BRADY 316 U.S. 455 (1942) was not a fair one and that a man too poor for legal counsel could not have a fair trial without it. Also, it was questioned: How can a man too poor for a lawyer be given a fair trial if a man with the funds to procure a lawyer can get better results at trial? Would that then not be that a poor man is disadvantaged because of his position in life? And finally, the reason that this case is named Gideon v. Wainwright rather than Gideon v. Cochran is because the party against whom Gideon had originally brought his Habeas Corpus action, H. G. Cochran, Jr. had resigned as the Florida Division of Corrections and been replaced by Louie L. Wainwright, who was then obligated to take the place of his former. A short lived place in actuality, though however long in history, for the case itself was decided just a few days later.