Summary Overview

Gideon v. Wainwright is a landmark Supreme Court case that significantly advanced the principles of justice and fairness in the American legal system. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires states to provide legal counsel to criminal defendants who cannot afford an attorney.

In their ruling, the justices unanimously asserted the constitutional right to a court-appointed attorney for Americans accused of a felony. The decision extended the right to an attorney that had previously been guaranteed to those standing trials for capital crimes and overturned an earlier court decision that provided that right in felony trials in limited circumstances only. The justices cited the Sixth Amendment’s protections of citizens’ right to an attorney and the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process at the state level as the primary bases for their opinion.

Gideon v. Wainwright reflected the Warren Court’s overall record of judicial activism in favor of civil rights. Along with other landmark decisions such as Hernandez v. Texas (1954) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the case worked to secure expanded rights for those accused and tried for crimes at the state level.

Defining Moment

Among the earliest amendments to the U.S. Constitution were those granting citizens protections from unfair legal procedures. The Fifth Amendment asserts the right to due process of law and to avoid self-incrimination, among other protections. The Sixth Amendment establishes that someone accused of a crime has the right to have charges heard at a timely jury trial, to know the nature of the charges and evidence against them, and to have the advice of a lawyer. Likewise, the Seventh Amendment establishes the right to a jury trial in most noncriminal suits. Finally, the Eighth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable bails, fines, and cruel and unusual punishment. Although Americans have interpreted these guarantees differently since their ratification in 1791, the amendments together show a national commitment to protecting citizens from legal abuses by the state.

During the 1900s, the U.S. Supreme Court increasingly interpreted the Constitution in a way that expanded these protections. The Fourteenth Amendment, which had been ratified after the Civil War, required states to guarantee the same due process rights as did the federal government. The court, therefore, tended to agree that those accused of certain crimes not only had the right to engage counsel for their defense but also that the state had the duty to provide that counsel for those who could not do so on their own. The 1932 decision in Powell v. Alabama, for example, established that the court must appoint an attorney for someone accused of a crime that could be punished by death if the accused could not otherwise obtain an attorney. During the following decade, however, the court declined to extend that guarantee of defense counsel to those accused of lesser felonies in most instances in its opinion in Betts v. Brady (1942).

Clarence Earl Gideon challenged this determination. In 1961, authorities in Panama City, Florida, arrested Gideon on charges of breaking into a local pool hall to steal money from the business’s vending machines. Gideon soon went to trial. He asked the court to appoint a defense attorney for him, as he could not afford to engage one himself. The court denied his request, and Gideon acted as his own representative in court. The case against him was relatively thin. Witnesses placed him near the scene of the crime but could not directly implicate him in the burglary. Gideon lacked the skills to effectively put forth a legal defense, however, and the jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

From prison, Gideon petitioned to be released because his trial had been unfair. His lack of an attorney, he argued, had directly resulted in his conviction and was thus unconstitutional. The Florida Supreme Court denied his request, and Gideon appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices heard arguments in the case in January of 1963.

Author Biography

The Supreme Court’s opinion in Gideon v. Wainwright was delivered by Justice Hugo Black. Born on February 27, 1886, in Jim Crow–era Alabama, he had briefly been a member of the white supremacist organization the Ku Klux Klan during its heyday in the 1920s. Black did not personally agree with the Klan’s practices, however, and his affiliation is generally considered one of political expediency. He represented Alabama in the U.S. Senate from 1927 until President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal policies he strongly supported, appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1937.

Black’s judicial philosophy made him a leader of the court’s liberal wing throughout his tenure. At the time of the Gideon ruling, he was part of the so-called Warren Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, which earned a reputation for liberal civil rights decisions. Black remained a justice until shortly before his death in 1971.

Historical Document

Gideon v. Wainwright

MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner was charged in a Florida state court with having broken and entered a poolroom with intent to commit a misdemeanor. This offense is a felony under Florida law. Appearing in court without funds and without a lawyer, petitioner asked the court to appoint counsel for him, whereupon the following colloquy took place:

The COURT: Mr. Gideon, I am sorry, but I cannot appoint Counsel to represent you in this case. Under the laws of the State of Florida, the only time the Court can appoint Counsel to represent a Defendant is when that person is charged with a capital offense. I am sorry, but I will have to deny your request to appoint Counsel to defend you in this case.

The DEFENDANT: The United States Supreme Court says I am entitled to be represented by Counsel.

Put to trial before a jury, Gideon conducted his defense about as well as could be expected from a layman. He made an opening statement to the jury, cross-examined the State’s witnesses, presented witnesses in his own defense, declined to testify himself, and made a short argument “emphasizing his innocence to the charge contained in the Information filed in this case.” The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and petitioner was sentenced to serve five years in the state prison. Later, petitioner filed in the Florida Supreme Court this habeas corpus petition attacking his conviction and sentence on the ground that the trial court’s refusal to appoint counsel for him denied him rights “guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights by the United States Government.” [n1] Treating the petition for habeas corpus as properly before it, the State Supreme Court, “upon consideration thereof” but without an opinion, denied all relief. Since 1942, when Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, was decided by a divided Court, the problem of a defendant’s federal constitutional right to counsel in a state court has been a continuing source of controversy and litigation in both state and federal courts. [n2] To give this problem another review here, we granted certiorari. 370 U.S. 908. Since Gideon was proceeding in forma pauperis, we appointed counsel to represent him and requested both sides to discuss in their briefs and oral arguments the following: “Should this Court’s holding in Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, be reconsidered?”

I

The facts upon which Betts claimed that he had been unconstitutionally denied the right to have counsel appointed to assist him are strikingly like the facts upon which Gideon here bases his federal constitutional claim. Betts was indicted for robbery in a Maryland state court. On arraignment, he told the trial judge of his lack of funds to hire a lawyer and asked the court to appoint one for him. Betts was advised that it was not the practice in that county to appoint counsel for indigent defendants except in murder and rape cases. He then pleaded not guilty, had witnesses summoned, cross-examined the State’s witnesses, examined his own, and chose not to testify himself. He was found guilty by the judge, sitting without a jury, and sentenced to eight years in prison. Like Gideon, Betts sought release by habeas corpus, alleging that he had been denied the right to assistance of counsel in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Betts was denied any relief, and, on review, this Court affirmed. It was held that a refusal to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant charged with a felony did not necessarily violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which, for reasons given, the Court deemed to be the only applicable federal constitutional provision. The Court said:

Asserted denial [of due process] is to be tested by an appraisal of the totality of facts in a given case. That which may, in one setting, constitute a denial of fundamental fairness, shocking to the universal sense of justice, may, in other circumstances, and in the light of other considerations, fall short of such denial.

316 U.S. at 462. Treating due process as “a concept less rigid and more fluid than those envisaged in other specific and particular provisions of the Bill of Rights,” the Court held that refusal to appoint counsel under the particular facts and circumstances in the Betts case was not so “offensive to the common and fundamental ideas of fairness” as to amount to a denial of due process. Since the facts and circumstances of the two cases are so nearly indistinguishable, we think the Betts v. Brady holding, if left standing, would require us to reject Gideon’s claim that the Constitution guarantees him the assistance of counsel. Upon full reconsideration, we conclude that Betts v. Brady should be overruled.

II

The Sixth Amendment provides, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” We have construed this to mean that, in federal courts, counsel must be provided for defendants unable to employ counsel unless the right is competently and intelligently waived. [n3] Betts argued that this right is extended to indigent defendants in state courts by the Fourteenth Amendment. In response, the Court stated that, while the Sixth Amendment laid down no rule for the conduct of the States, the question recurs whether the constraint laid by the Amendment upon the national courts expresses a rule so fundamental and essential to a fair trial, and so, to due process of law, that it is made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.

316 U.S. at 465. In order to decide whether the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of counsel is of this fundamental nature, the Court in Betts set out and considered [r]elevant data on the subject … afforded by constitutional and statutory provisions subsisting in the colonies and the States prior to the inclusion of the Bill of Rights in the national Constitution, and in the constitutional, legislative, and judicial history of the States to the present date.

316 U.S. at 465. On the basis of this historical data, the Court concluded that “appointment of counsel is not a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial.” 316 U.S. at 471. It was for this reason the Betts Court refused to accept the contention that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of counsel for indigent federal defendants was extended to or, in the words of that Court, “made obligatory upon, the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Plainly, had the Court concluded that appointment of counsel for an indigent criminal defendant was “a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial,” it would have held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires appointment of counsel in a state court, just as the Sixth Amendment requires in a federal court.

We think the Court in Betts had ample precedent for acknowledging that those guarantees of the Bill of Rights which are fundamental safeguards of liberty immune from federal abridgment are equally protected against state invasion by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This same principle was recognized, explained, and applied in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932), a case upholding the right of counsel, where the Court held that, despite sweeping language to the contrary in Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884), the Fourteenth Amendment “embraced” those “’fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions,’” even though they had been “specifically dealt with in another part of the federal Constitution.” 287 U.S. at 67. In many cases other than Powell and Betts, this Court has looked to the fundamental nature of original Bill of Rights guarantees to decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment makes them obligatory on the States. Explicitly recognized to be of this “fundamental nature,” and therefore made immune from state invasion by the Fourteenth, or some part of it, are the First Amendment’s freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly, association, and petition for redress of grievances. [n4] For the same reason, though not always in precisely the same terminology, the Court has made obligatory on the States the Fifth Amendment’s command that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, [n5] the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures,[n6] and the Eighth’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. [n7] On the other hand, this Court in Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937), refused to hold that the Fourteenth Amendment made the double jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment obligatory on the States. In so refusing, however, the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Cardozo, was careful to emphasize that immunities that are valid as against the federal government by force of the specific pledges of particular amendments have been found to be implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, and thus, through the Fourteenth Amendment, become valid as against the states, and that guarantees “in their origin … effective against the federal government alone” had, by prior cases, been taken over from the earlier articles of the federal bill of rights and brought within the Fourteenth Amendment by a process of absorption.

302 U.S. at 323, 325, 326.

We accept Betts v. Brady’s assumption, based as it was on our prior cases, that a provision of the Bill of Rights which is “fundamental and essential to a fair trial” is made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. We think the Court in Betts was wrong, however, in concluding that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of counsel is not one of these fundamental rights. Ten years before Betts v. Brady, this Court, after full consideration of all the historical data examined in Betts, had unequivocally declared that “the right to the aid of counsel is of this fundamental character.” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68 (1932). While the Court, at the close of its Powell opinion, did, by its language, as this Court frequently does, limit its holding to the particular facts and circumstances of that case, its conclusions about the fundamental nature of the right to counsel are unmistakable. Several years later, in 1936, the Court reemphasized what it had said about the fundamental nature of the right to counsel in this language:

We concluded that certain fundamental rights, safeguarded by the first eight amendments against federal action, were also safeguarded against state action by the due process of law clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and among them the fundamental right of the accused to the aid of counsel in a criminal prosecution.

Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 243-244 (1936). And again, in 1938, this Court said:

[The assistance of counsel] is one of the safeguards of the Sixth Amendment deemed necessary to insure fundamental human rights of life and liberty. … The Sixth Amendment stands as a constant admonition that, if the constitutional safeguards it provides be lost, justice will not “still be done.”

Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 462 (1938). To the same effect, see Avery v. Alabama, 308 U.S. 444 (1940), and Smith v. O’Grady, 312 U.S. 329 (1941). In light of these and many other prior decisions of this Court, it is not surprising that the Betts Court, when faced with the contention that “one charged with crime, who is unable to obtain counsel, must be furnished counsel by the State,” conceded that “[e]xpressions in the opinions of this court lend color to the argument….” 316 U.S. at 462-463. The fact is that, in deciding as it did—that “appointment of counsel is not a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial”—the Court in Betts v. Brady made an abrupt break with its own well considered precedents. In returning to these old precedents, sounder, we believe, than the new, we but restore constitutional principles established to achieve a fair system of justice. Not only these precedents, but also reason and reflection, require us to recognize that, in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled 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 us to be an obvious truth. Governments, both state and federal, quite properly spend vast sums of money to establish machinery to try defendants accused of crime. Lawyers to prosecute are everywhere deemed essential to protect the public’s interest in an orderly society. Similarly, there are few defendants charged with crime, few indeed, who fail to hire the best lawyers they can get to prepare and present their defenses. 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. From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him. A defendant’s need for a lawyer is nowhere better stated than in the moving words of Mr. Justice Sutherland in Powell v. Alabama:

The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel, he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence.

287 U.S. at 68-69. The Court in Betts v. Brady departed from the sound wisdom upon which the Court’s holding in Powell v. Alabama rested. Florida, supported by two other States, has asked that Betts v. Brady be left intact. Twenty-two States, as friends of the Court, argue that Betts was “an anachronism when handed down,” and that it should now be overruled. We agree.

The judgment is reversed, and the cause is remanded to the Supreme Court of Florida for further action not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed.

1. Later, in the petition for habeas corpus, signed and apparently prepared by petitioner himself, he stated, “I, Clarence Earl Gideon, claim that I was denied the rights of the 4th, 5th and 14th amendments of the Bill of Rights.”

2. Of the many such cases to reach this Court, recent examples are Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506 (1962); Hudson v. North Carolina, 363 U.S. 697 (1960); Moore v. Michigan, 355 U.S. 155 (1957). Illustrative cases in the state courts are Artrip v. State, 136 So.2d 574 (Ct.App.Ala.1962); Shafer v. Warden, 211 Md. 635, 126 A.2d 573 (1956). For examples of commentary, see Allen, The Supreme Court, Federalism, and State Systems of Criminal Justice, 8 De Paul L.Rev. 213 (1959); Kamisar, The Right to Counsel and the Fourteenth Amendment: A Dialogue on “The Most Pervasive Right” of an Accused, 30 U. of Chi.L.Rev. 1 (1962); The Right to Counsel, 45 Minn.L.Rev. 693 (1961).

3. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 (1938).

4. E.g., Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666 (1925) (speech and press); Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 450 (1938) (speech and press); Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U.S. 313, 321 (1958) (speech); Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 244 (1936) (press); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 (1940) (religion); De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364 (1937) (assembly); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 486, 488 (1960) (association); Louisiana ex rel. Gremillion v. NAACP, 366 U.S. 293, 296 (1961) (association); Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229 (1963) (speech, assembly, petition for redress of grievances).

5. E.g., Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, 235-241 (1897); Smyth v. Ames, 169 U.S. 466, 522-526 (1898).

6. E.g., Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27-28 (1949); Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 213 (1960); Mapp v. Ohio,367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961).

7. Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 666 (1962).

Document Analysis

The question before the Court in Gideon v. Wainwright was whether to uphold its own precedent, Betts v. Brady (1942), wherein the Court had found that the Fourteenth Amendment did not make the Sixth Amendment right to counsel applicable to all state criminal proceedings. Justice Black had written a dissent for the minority in that case and with the case of Gideon he had the opportunity to right what he clearly thought a wrong. In doing so, Black found himself in the position to write the opinion for a unanimous Court. Black, an advocate of what came to be known as the total incorporation theory, believed the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment had intended their work to incorporate all of the protections in the Bill of Rights, thus making the first eight amendments applicable at the state level.

After reviewing those aspects of the Bill of Rights the Court had already applied to the states, Black stated in Gideon the Court took at face value the Betts assumption that, owing to the Fourteenth Amendment, state courts must observe any provision of the Bill of Rights that is “fundamental and essential to a fair trial.” Unlike the Betts Court, however, the Gideon Court believed the guarantee of counsel was a fundamental right. In other words, the Court believed the language within the Sixth Amendment referring to a person’s right to counsel was essential to a fair trial, and certainly applied to the states under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Black found plenty of support for this proposition in other Court opinions, making the case that Betts was an anomaly that had to be overturned. The unanimous ruling established the precedent that due process made it mandatory for counsel to be provided to indigent criminal defendants.

Essential Themes

Gideon contributed significantly to the due process revolution that effectively expanded individual rights by giving people who could not afford legal representation the opportunity at a better chance of receiving fair legal examination. The public defender program was greatly expanded nationwide in an attempt to uphold the Court’s ruling, and ensure individuals without the kind of finances needed to secure a lawyer would nonetheless be provided legal counsel. The Court’s stance on the Gideon case contributed to the Court’s forward-thinking approach to criminal justice, in which the rights of criminal defendants were highlighted and supported.

The Court, in turn, expanded Gideon in Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972), making the right to counsel applicable to misdemeanor defendants facing the prospect of incarceration. Before long, the right to counsel was being read to imply a right to effective counsel. Still, other cases drew on Gideon when addressing the issue of when in the course of legal proceedings a lawyer must be assigned. More recently, legal associations have been urging courts to assign attorneys to impoverished litigants pursuing civil actions concerning such matters as housing, health care, and child care. Following the case of Gideon, the number of appeals coming from individuals who were unable to pay court costs increased. While history reflects the fact the Court did not hear all cases coming from indigent defendants after the Gideon ruling, the opportunity to receive a more fair trial in the lower court system was put in place because of the Court’s ruling in Gideon.

Bibliography and Additional Reading