Chapter 1
The Crime Beat: The Right to an Attorney
By Dave Krajicek

Clarence Gideon, 51, an indigent barfly, was arrested June 3, 1961, for a break-in at a pool hall in Bay Harbor, Florida.

His pockets bulged with $25 in coins when he was nabbed. Cops said the money came from jimmied pool hall coin boxes.

Gideon swore he was innocent. He said the coins were winnings from a poker game. Destitute, he asked that a lawyer be appointed to represent him, at taxpayer expense. A judge ruled he was not entitled to free legal advice because the burglary was not a capital offense and Gideon did not qualify as a "special circumstances" suspect; he was neither illiterate, feebleminded nor a juvenile.

Forced to represent himself at trial, Gideon was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

Behind bars, Gideon read law books and decided the judge had violated his right to "due process of law" under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Gideon used prison stationery and a pencil to ask the Supreme Court to consider his simple complaint: that he had asked for a lawyer and didn't get one.

Coincidentally, civil rights advocates had been anticipating just such an appeal over the issue of free legal representation for indigent accused criminals.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees free counsel to anyone charged with a federal crime. But that amendment did not apply to state charges.

The Supreme Court ruled in the infamous Scottsboro Boys case, in which seven young black men were accused in 1932 of raping two white women, that taxpayer-funded lawyers must be provided in cases in which the accused might face execution if convicted.

By 1961 many states provided lawyers to indigent defendants charged with any felony, but Florida was not among them.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider Gideon's appeal. The case was assigned to Abe Fortas, a politically connected Washington attorney who counted President Lyndon Johnson among his close friends. (Johnson later appointed Fortas to the Supreme Court.)

On Jan. 14, 1963, Fortas stood before the Supreme Court and said, "No man, however intelligent, can conduct his own defense adequately…The aid of counsel is indispensable to a fair hearing."

The court made its unanimous ruling two months later. Justice Hugo Black wrote that "precedents, reason and reflection" obligated all courts to make a lawyer available to anyone charged with a felony, regardless of ability to pay.

Gideon's conviction was set aside. At a second trial, a court-appointed defense attorney picked apart the evidence, and Gideon was quickly acquitted.

In 1972, the year Gideon died, the Supreme Court expanded its ruling in his case to include free counsel for anyone arrested who might spend even one day in jail if convicted, including those charged with a misdemeanor.