Introduction The Sixth Amendment provides for the rights of criminal defendants. An accused person has a right to a lawyer. All state courts have to provide legal counsel for the defendant if they cannot afford to hire their own. Lack of legal representation is an infringement on the Accused's right to representation and fair trial. The Supreme Court set this precedence in Gideon v. Wainwright by ruling that people accused of felonies must be provided with a lawyer if they cannot afford one. 

Gideon v. Wainwright 372 U.S. 335 (1963)

Background of the case

In 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon was accused of robbing a pool hall and stood trial in Florida State Trial Court (the court of original jurisdiction). However, Gideon could not afford a lawyer to represent him in court. He requested the court seeking that he be provided with a lawyer. An issue arose because the Florida State Trial Court only provided lawyers for those accused of capital offenses. At the time, the Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel was only applicable to the federal government and not the states. Gideon was forced by the Florida State Trial Court to represent himself; he lost the case and was sentenced to prison for five years.[footnoteRef:1] [1: Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). ]

While in prison, Gideon appealed his case that the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause incorporated the Sixth Amendment right to legal representation in the states. He used a habeas corpus petition (or petition for release from unjust imprisonment) to seek an appeal in the Florida Supreme Court because his conviction was unconstitutional. However, the Florida Supreme Court upheld his conviction. This decision prompted him to write a letter to the US Supreme Court requesting that the Court review his case and provide him with legal representation.

In 1963, the Supreme Court of the United States took up his case and appointed Abe Fortas as a legal counsel to represent Gideon in the case.

The Constitutional question at stake

Did the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel apply to the states?

In Betts V. Brady, decided in 1942, the Supreme Court affirmed that states were not required to provide a legal counsel for accused persons of crimes not punishable by death....

The Supreme Court stated that even though the states must honor fundamental constitutional rights to a fair trial, the right to a court-appointed counsel for a defendant in non-capital cases was not one of the fundamental rights. This decision was disputed by Justice Hugo Black, along with two other justices. They thought that states should provide attorneys for everyone.[footnoteRef:2] [2: Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455, 462–73 (1942).]
Decision

The judges of the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unanimously in favor of Gideon.[footnoteRef:3] Justice Black wrote the majority opinion, which stated that the Sixth Amendment Constitutional right prevents states from depriving defendants of the right to legal representation in state criminal trials even if the defendants cannot afford or retain the counsel on their own. He...…pre-trial stage, preliminary hearings, plea bargaining, and the entry of a guilty plea. Recent cases presented in the Supreme Court have focused on extending the right to legal representation under the Sixth Amendment.

However, although Gideon's decision was purposed to afford the benefit of equal rights for criminal defendants irrespective of economic status, the decision has negatively impacted other cases. The funding for public defenders and court-appointed lawyers remains insufficient. Likewise, there is very little funding for the proper training of these public defenders and court-appointed lawyers. Consequently, there has been extensive deliberation surrounding this "underfunded mandate." Many think that it is not effective because the court-appointed lawyer is very limited. They are overworked and underpaid, hence not able to effectively represent the accused persons.[footnoteRef:6] [6: See AM. BAR ASS’N, GIDEON’S BROKEN PROMISE: AMERICA’S CONTINUING QUEST FOR EQUAL JUSTICE i, iv (2004), https://www.in.gov/publicdefender/files/ABAGideon%27sBrokenPromise.pdf]

The lawyers have moved away from trial advocacy and, instead, lean more toward plea bargain for their clients.[footnoteRef:7] Many of the accused have been sentenced, and very few are acquitted, and as a result, there has been an increase in mass incarceration. The courts also experience a backlog of cases, as one defendant may be assigned to many accused persons simultaneously, resulting in many cases' adjournment. The government needs to look into the budgeting system for public defenders and court-appointed lawyers to represent accused persons properly. [7: Eve Brensike Primus, Effective Counsel After Martinez v. Ryan: Focusing on the Adequacy of State Procedures, 122 Yale L.J. 2604, 2606 (2013).]