Gideon v. Wainwright

Gideon v. Wainwright
Gideon v. Wainwright
	Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 15, 1963; Decided March 18, 1963
Full case name	Clarence Earl Gideon v. Louie L. Wainwright, Corrections Director
Citations	372 U.S. 335 (more) 83 S. Ct. 792; 9 L. Ed. 2d 799; 1963 U.S. LEXIS 1942; 23 Ohio Op. 2d 258; 93 A.L.R.2d 733; OYEZ
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, Bay County, Florida Circuit Court (1961); habeas petition denied w/o opinion, sub. nom. Gideon v. Cochrane, 135 So. 2d 746 (Fla. 1961)
Subsequent	On remand, 153 So. 2d 299 (Fla. 1963); defendant acquitted, Bay County, Florida Circuit Court (1963)
Holding
	The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is a fundamental right applied to the states through the Fourteenth, and requires that indigent criminal defendants be provided counsel at trial. Supreme Court of Florida reversed.
Court membership
	Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas; Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II; William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart; Byron White · Arthur Goldberg
Case opinions
Majority	Black, joined by Warren, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, White, Goldberg
Concurrence	Douglas
Concurrence	Clark
Concurrence	Harlan
Laws applied
	U.S. Const. amends. VI, XIV

Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In the case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution to provide lawyers in criminal cases for defendants unable to afford their own attorneys.

Decision

The unanimous decision was announced on 18 March 1963; the opinion of the Court was delivered by Justice Hugo Black.

In it, the court specifically praised its previous ruling in Powell v. Alabama, and overruled Betts v. Brady, which allowed selective application of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to the states, itself previously binding only in Federal cases. Instead, the court held that the right to counsel was a fundamental right, essential for a fair trial, thereby emphasizing the procedural safeguards which were needed for due process of law. In this sense, the court ruled specifically that no one, regardless of wealth, education or class, should be charged with a crime and then be forced to face his accusers in court without the guidance of counsel. All of the other justices concurred in the judgment.

The court remanded the case to the Supreme Court of Florida for "further action not inconsistent with this decision." Gideon was then retried: represented by appointed counsel in this second trial, he was acquitted. Gideon v. Wainwright was one of a series of Supreme Court decisions which confirmed the right of defendants in criminal proceedings to counsel during trial, on appeal, and in the subsequent cases of Massiah v. United States 377 U.S. 201 (1964) and Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966), even during police interrogation.

Decision

See also