Teaching With Documents, Volume 2

Contents:

The Bill of Rights: Due Process and Rights of the Accused

CLARENCE EARL GIDEON’S
PETITION IN FORMA PAUPERIS

Reason and reflection require us to recognize that in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person hailed into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him. This seems to be an obvious truth .... 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. The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours.

—Justice Hugo Black
Opinion, Gideon v Wainwright

The Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to a lawyer has expanded significantly during the past 60 years. The most important case in the expansion of the right to counsel occurred as a result of the case Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963.

In 1932, in the first of the Scottsboro appeals to come before the Supreme Court, Powell v Alabama, the Court ruled that the right to counsel in a capital case was fundamental to due process. The Court found that the indigent defendants in this case were not provided adequate time to hire lawyers and that the court-requested lawyers had inadequate time to prepare a defense. The decision appeared to incorporate the Sixth Amendment into the Constitution through the 14th Amendment, but 10 years later, the Supreme Court rejected incorporation of the right to counsel in Betts v Brady.

Not until the early 1960s did the Supreme Court begin to incorporate the Fifth and Sixth Amendments into the Constitution. Malloy v Hogan extended the right against self-incrimination to the States in 1964. The Sixth Amendment was incorporated in the landmark case of Gideon v Wainwright.

Clarence Earl Gideon, an indigent with five prior convictions, was arrested for breaking and entering a pool hall in Bay Harbor, FL, in June 1961. At the beginning of his trial in August, Gideon requested that the judge appoint a lawyer to defend him, but the judge refused because Florida law provided for free lawyers only in capital cases. At that time, 37 of the 50 States provided lawyers for poor defendants in all felony cases, and 8 others usually provided lawyers in felony cases. Only 5 provided lawyers only in capital cases, and Florida was one of them. During his trial, Gideon unsuccessfully defended himself, was convicted and was sent to the Florida state prison.


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Although Gideon had only an eighth-grade education, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus based on the argument that he was being held illegally because his right to a lawyer had been denied when one was not provided for him at the time of his trial. The petition was rejected by the Florida courts. His subsequent petition to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari was returned because he did not use the required form. His request was returned, however, with a Supreme Court style manual. Writing on prison stationery and following the samples in the booklet, Gideon resubmitted his request in January 1962. Gideon also filed a petition in forma pauperis, a request that the Supreme Court appoint a lawyer to present his case because he was a pauper. This petition is the featured document, which is part of the Records of the Supreme Court of the United States, Record Group 267.

The Court appointed the respected Washington attorney Abe Fortas to represent Gideon. (Fortas was soon to become a Supreme Court Justice.) Fortas argued that a defendant could not get a fair trial in the United States without a lawyer and that conviction without a fair trial violated due process of law. In other words, those who could not afford a lawyer were being denied equal protection under the law. Fortas’s arguments convinced the Court to reverse Betts. Justice Hugo Black, a dissenter in Betts, wrote the opinion. The unanimous Gideon decision required states to provide counsel for indigent felony defendants. Gideon was retried in Bay Harbor, his case presented by a lawyer, and he was found innocent, as he had steadfastly claimed he was all along.

Gideon v. Wainwright did not answer all questions about the right to counsel. For example, unanswered was the question of the stage in the legal process at which the accused’s right to counsel began. It was not until the Miranda decision in 1966 that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel was extended to apply to a suspect from the moment of arrest.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

Discussion

1. Introduce this lesson by defining the expression "due process." Ask students to locate and identify in the U.S. Constitution the amendments that define due process and equal protection.

Vocabulary Development

2. Many terms in this document and in the background reading of the case need to be identified before students can read about Clarence Earl Gideon.

a. Assign students the following terms to define: affidavit, counsel (n.), deposition, due process of law, felony, in forma pauperis, indigent, misdemeanor, petitioner, redress, respondent, vacate, writ of certiorari, and writ of habeus corpus.

b. After they have completed the definitions, divide the class into groups of four. Ask each group to make a crossword puzzle from the vocabulary list. Make copies of all the puzzles for each of the students.

c. Once the students have mastered the legal vocabulary, you may wish to invite a lawyer or state supreme court judge to speak to your class about one or two due process cases originating in your home state. Alternately, you may wish to contact your local bar association and enter some of your students in a mock trial competition.

Document Review

3. Duplicate and distribute the document, and ask students to read it carefully and answer the following questions:

a. What is the date of this document?
b. Who created the document?
c. Who received the document?
d. What is the motion requested by the petitioner in this document?
e. Why does the petitioner request leave to proceed without being required to prepay costs or fees of the court?
f. Why does the petitioner believe he is entitled to redress by the courts?

Case Study

4. Instruct students to use the document, their textbooks, and library reference books to collect the following data to make a case study of Gideon v Wainwright. Anthony Lewis’s Gideon’s Trumpet is a particularly useful secondary source.

a. Facts

• What crime was Gideon accused of committing?
• When and where did the crime occur?
• Why did Gideon not have a lawyer? Why did Gideon want a lawyer?

b. Issues

• What right did Gideon believe he had been denied?
• Was there a constitutional basis for the Supreme Court to review Gideon’s case?
• What was it?
• What Bill of Rights issue did the Court have to decide in Gideon’s case?

c. Arguments

• What arguments did Gideon and Abe Fortas offer in support of their position?
• What arguments did the State of Florida offer?

d. Decision

• How would you decide Gideon’s case?

e. Evaluation

• What was the Court’s decision in Gideon’s case?
• What reasons did the Court give for its decision?
• What was the effect of the decision on Clarence Earl Gideon? What was the effect of the Gideon decision on law enforcement officers?
• What was the effect of the Gideon decision on the criminal justice system?
• What was the effect of the Gideon decision on the power of the States?

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Chicago: "The Bill of Rights: Due Process and Rights of the Accused," Teaching With Documents, Volume 2 in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. Wynell B. Schamel (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, 1998), 239–243. Original Sources, accessed March 28, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=XJ54ZT3P9KBC7CU.

MLA: . "The Bill of Rights: Due Process and Rights of the Accused." Teaching With Documents, Volume 2, in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, edited by Wynell B. Schamel, Vol. 2, Washington, D.C., National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, 1998, pp. 239–243. Original Sources. 28 Mar. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=XJ54ZT3P9KBC7CU.

Harvard: , 'The Bill of Rights: Due Process and Rights of the Accused' in Teaching With Documents, Volume 2. cited in 1998, Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. , National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, Washington, D.C., pp.239–243. Original Sources, retrieved 28 March 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=XJ54ZT3P9KBC7CU.