Word: gideons
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Supreme Court decisions have been so universally admired as Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), which reversed the burglary conviction of Clarence Gideon, a Florida indigent, because he had been denied free counsel at his trial. The Constitution entitles every defendant to a lawyer, said the court...
Moreover, the Supreme Court not only made Gideon retroactive; it later ex tended the ruling to all defendants who plead guilty rather than stand trial (up to 90% in some states). In addition, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled last January that Gideon applies to misdemeanors as well as felonies (Harvey v. Mississippi...
Learning by Defending. As a result of all this, says Research Attorney Lee Silverstein of the American Bar Foundation, 26 states have instituted vital reforms. In the American Bar Association Journal, Silverstein reports that the Gideon case has particularly affected Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, where a poor man's right to free counsel previously covered only capital cases. The right now covers felonies in all five states. Florida, which produced Gideon, has set up a statewide public-defender system and now permits law students to defend indigents-as do New York, Colorado, Connecticut and Massachusetts...
...another Gideon effect, says Silverstein, states have begun to follow the federal rule that a defendant must know what he is doing when he waives the right to counsel. Written waivers are now required in North Carolina, West Virginia and Massachusetts. In other states, the number of waivers is declining. Moreover, indigents who request lawyers at the preliminary hearing in any felony case now get them in Utah, Idaho, Illinois, Virginia and New Mexico. As for misdemeanors, Massachusetts now requires counsel in any case punishable by imprisonment. Texas and New York will soon follow suit...
...Safeguards. More recently, two related decisions laid the groundwork for a ruling that even a voluntary confession might be inadmissible in state courts. In Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), the Sixth Amendment right to counsel was extended to all state criminal courts. In Malloy v. Hogan (1964), the Fifth Amendment guarantee against self-incrimination was also extended to the states. As a result, the court took the next step-concluding that police interrogation itself is so crucial in prosecution, that at this stage, as well as in the courtroom, an accused's rights to silence and to counsel...