This case is important to me historically and philosophically, but also on a much more personal level because, frankly, it means I have a job! It is my great pleasure to be a public defender in the 5th biggest city in America (by most scales), which means that I see the doctrine set in stone by the Gideon decision come to life every day and affect thousands of Americans a year.
The Chief Defender of my office, a woman of extreme talent and heart, whom I respect immeasurably, summarized the case as follows:
"A half-century ago, the Supreme Court, in Gideon v. Wainwright, ruled that any indigent defendant charged with a felony must be provided a lawyer free-of-charge. The Court found the right to counsel 'fundamental' in order to ensure 'fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law.'
"Since Gideon, the right to counsel has been expanded to misdemeanor cases where the defendant could be jailed, a defendant's first appeal from a conviction, and juvenile delinquency proceedings."
Factually, the case came about when Clarence Earl Gideon was arrested for a burglary that occurred at 8:00am in a pool hall in Florida. The arrest of Gideon was based solely on an accusation that Gideon had been seen leaving the pool hall at about 5:30am that same day with a bottle of wine and some money. Gideon had not robbed the business; he was innocent. He asked for an attorney to be appointed for him, because he could not afford one and he had no idea how to defend himself against a single accusation baselessly linking him to a major felony that he did not commit. His request for an attorney was denied and he was convicted of the burglary.
From his prison cell, on prison stationary, with a pencil, Gideon petitioned the US Supreme Court for the right to an attorney...AND WON! The case is really a miracle in many regards.
I agree with what Lincoln Caplan, as published by the New York Times, wrote concerning the case, "The holding in Gideon v. Wainwright enlarged the Constitution’s safeguards of liberty and equality..."
Unfortunately, although this is absolutely true on paper, this is not necessarily the truth in all parts of the country. Rather than have established, well-respected and well-qualified public defense offices, some states have chosen to virtually force private attorneys to occasionally handle some criminal defense cases for a paltry fee. It is not unheard of, for example, in Texas, for a life-long corporate attorney who spends her time writing contracts or looking up tax provisions and has never seen the inside of a courtroom before to be called upon to defend a person on death row. In other words, some states and counties place the lives of citizens in the hands of amateurs who are presumed competent just because they possess a valid (generic!) law degree.
In a word, it's criminal.
Caplan continues:
"The
powerlessness of poor defendants is becoming even more evident under
harsh sentencing schemes created in the past few decades. They give
prosecutors, who have huge discretion, a strong threat to use, and have
led to almost 94 percent of all state criminal cases being settled in
plea bargains — often because of weak defense lawyers [see above^] who fail to push
back.
"The
competency of lawyers is, of course, most critical in death penalty
cases. In dozens of states, capital cases are routinely handled by
poorly
paid, inexperienced lawyers. And yet, only very rarely are inmates ever
granted a new trial because of incompetent counsel.
"In a
Georgia death penalty case last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit
ruled
that even though the main defense lawyer drank a quart of vodka each
night of the trial, there was no need for a retrial. The lawyer was
himself preparing to be criminally prosecuted
for stealing client funds, and presented very little evidence about the
defendant’s intellectual disability. But the court said the defendant
had a fair trial because proof that he killed a sheriff’s deputy
outweighed any weakness in his legal representation.
"In an infamous 1996
Texas death-penalty case, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
upheld a defendant’s death sentence even though his lead counsel slept during the trial.
"The Supreme Court has made it possible for courts to uphold such indefensible lawyering. In 1984, in
Strickland v. Washington,
the court said that for a defendant to be entitled to a new trial, he
must show both that his lawyer’s advice was deficient and that the
deficiency deprived him of
a fair trial — a very high hurdle. And the court’s majority defined
competency as requiring only that the lawyer’s judgment be “reasonable
under prevailing professional norms.” [To me, this is just judges -read, lawyers- finding a way to protect their Old Boys Club]
"Justice
Thurgood Marshall, writing in dissent, said the result of this empty
standard 'is covertly to legitimate convictions and sentences obtained
on the basis of incompetent conduct by defense counsel.' That is
exactly what has happened in the past three decades. In fact,
incompetent counsel for poor defendants is so widespread that under this
standard the prevailing professional norm has been reduced
to mediocrity.
"After
50 years, the promise of Gideon v. Wainwright is mocked more often than
fulfilled. In a forthcoming issue of The Yale Law Journal, Stephen
Bright, president of the
Southern Center for Human Rights in Georgia, and Sia Sanneh, a lawyer with the
Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama,
recommend
that all states have statewide public defender systems that train and
supervise their lawyers, limit their workloads and have specialized
teams in, for example, death-penalty cases.
"There
is no shortage of lawyers to do this work. What stands in the way is an
undemocratic, deep-seated lack of political will."
BAM! I totally agree.
And I don't (completely) mean to sound like a radical revolutionary, but consider this language from the founding document of our country:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..."
Yep, right there in the black & white of the Declaration of Independence- if the government is becoming destructive to the life & liberty of its citizens, its the right of the people to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
In this country, people accused of crimes are presumed 100% innocent until the government PROVES they are guilty. However, many states seem to be treating defendants as 100% guilty before they even get to court by not caring enough about them to even secure a competent, trained, professional criminal defense attorney to protect their rights. State governments are setting up the accused for a finding of guilt, regardless of the presumption of innocence that ought to reign.
It's time to give criminal defendants a fighting chance! In my small time as a public defender, I have already seen computer glitches that bring up old warrants which lead to people's false arrests, falsified claims from hateful neighbors that lead to baseless arrests, police misconduct leading to inappropriate arrests, and innocent people suffering through the criminal justice system who should not have to.
This country was, rightly so, founded on a suspicion of government in favor in individual liberty and its time we rose to the bar set by our forefathers for what constitutes justice and liberty in the United States of America. To me, a major part of this is ensuring zealous representation of needy criminal defendants in every jurisdiction in the country, as the law already requires.
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