Haven't been on here in forever.

Hey Everyone!

I haven't been on here in forever and I first created this when I had the study guide on me! And this was almost 2 years ago when I was still in college! I have since graduated then and have lost the study guide...
In the beginning I had like NO foot traffic hence, the lack of activity on this page....and all of a sudden I got so much this past year but like I said, I have already lost the guide :( Sorry. My apologies.

I will try to look for it and update this regularly. Otherwise, if you're interested, please feel free to visit my personal blog -> www.kbokibot.blogspot.com

Leave a comment if you'd like, I'll check it and respond, I promise!
Thanks.

Hi! Need help with Gideon's Trumpet? Doing a paper on it? Ah, I've been in your shoes. Drop a line on what you'd like help on and I'll try my best to help ya.

- Helper

Chapter 1 + 2 Summary and Analysis

Clarence Earl Gideon is a fifty-one-year-old white man from the South who believes that he was denied due process of the law because he was not assigned an attorney during his trial. Gideon, holding to the idea that the Constitution assured him of that right, files a petition with the United States Supreme Court. He mails his request from the Florida State Prison in Raiford, and it's received by assistant Supreme Court Clerk Michael Rodak, Jr. While the rules allow some leniency for petitions filed in this manner, Rodak does check to be certain the petitioners have followed the rules that are enforced. Gideon's does and successfully clears the first hurdle toward being heard by the Supreme Court. H.G. Cockran, director of the Florida Division of Corrections, was named a respondent in Gideon's case.

Gideon isn't a "professional criminal" but simply couldn't seem to hold a job. He has served time in prison before the current incarceration but that hasn't stopped him caring about freedom. He is so determined that when his first petition is filed because there's no "pauper's affidavit," Gideon uses the Court-provided samples to file again. The petition is handwritten, neatly, which is also allowed in such cases. Gideon says his case should be heard because his trial violated the Fourteenth Amendment - he had no attorney. In fact, the Fourteenth Amendment doesn't guarantee an attorney but Gideon argues that point. The law actually says that only those in "special circumstances" are to be provided cases - a person who is illiterate, ignorant, young, mentally ill or accused of a capital offense. A transcript of the proceedings indicates that Gideon asks for an attorney and is denied by the trial judge.

The number of subjects available for petitioning the Supreme Court is limited. A question of interpretation of the Constitution is one of those and it's on that basis that the trial was "so unfair" it doesn't provide "due process" that Gideon submits his petition. It's also important to note that federal law supersedes state law. The court system must run its course, meaning that a case must go through the state's court system before being appealed to the Supreme Court. There are some exceptions to even these rules. Gideon's case meets the requirements meaning the Supreme Court has the power to decide to hear it - but they still aren't required to consider the case. The Judge's Bill of 1925 gives the Supreme Court Justices the freedom to decide which cases they'll hear with only a few exceptions, and they need give no reason for their decisions. Chief Justice Hughes noted that the Supreme Court should only hear cases that will impact past the initial petitioners.

As it turns out, the issue of whether a defendant is entitled to legal counsel has been recently on the minds of the Supreme Court Justices, giving Gideon's petition an addition boost into the system.

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The Supreme Court often received requests from prisoners so that aspect of Gideon's case was nothing new. It's interesting that the clerks who handle those requests seem so ardent about their jobs. It's noted that sometimes, one of the clerks would point out a particular case and predict that this one would be accepted and that the previous court decision would be overturned. No one said that about Gideon's case.

Gideon is serving time for petty larceny for having apparently broken into the Bay Harbor Poolroom in Panama City, Florida. It's interesting to note that he hadn't been able to settle down to a lifestyle that included regular work but is willing to hand write a five-page document, submit his petition twice and wade through the legal jargon in an effort to meet the requirements of the Supreme Court. It will later be revealed that more than his incarceration hangs in the balance. Gideon is on the verge of losing custody of his own three children and his stepdaughter. He will write to the attorney assigned to handle the Supreme Court case that all he wants is to get out of jail so that he can arrange for his children.

The Supreme Court never gets to decide an issue that isn't brought before the Justices. Those judges are not lawmakers in the sense that they have an idea and enact a law on that basis, but they do shape law in that their decisions are used to interpret laws in courts across the country.

One standard rule is that the person bringing the petition before the Supreme Court must have been hurt by the action. Put simply, someone else couldn't have the petition related to Gideon's case - only Gideon had been wronged so it was up to Gideon or his attorney to file the petition. Of course, Gideon didn't have an attorney.

It's important to note that a 1940s case, Betts vs. Brady, had established the rules for assigning an attorney to a defendant. It seems that the courts have been plagued with problems as they tried to apply the rules of Betts vs. Brady and that the Justices are therefore very familiar with the question of when a defendant is entitled to counsel. It's in this situation that Gideon brings his petition before the court, meaning the timing is right, the issue is broader than just the case of Gideon himself and that Gideon has been wronged by the lower court's action. These are all things that will likely make the Justices take a closer look at the petition.

Gideon's Trumpet Summary

*EDIT* 02/05/13

Hey Everyone!

I haven't been on here in forever and I first created this when I had the study guide on me! And this was almost 2 years ago when I was still in college! I have since graduated then and have lost the study guide...

In the beginning I had like NO foot traffic hence, the lack of activity on this page....and all of a sudden I got so much this past year but like I said, I have already lost the guide :( Sorry. My apologies.

I will try to look for it and update this regularly. Otherwise, if you're interested, please feel free to visit my personal blog -> www.kbokibot.blogspot.com

Leave a comment if you'd like, I'll check it and respond, I promise!

Thanks.

Clarence Earl Gideon is a fifty-one-year-old white man from the South who believes that he was denied due process of the law because he was not assigned an attorney during his trial in the early 1960s. Gideon, holding to the idea that the Constitution assured him of that right, files a petition with the United States Supreme Court. In fact, the trial courts on the state level are grappling with the question of when a petitioner is to have an attorney. The Gideon case will answer that question once and for all.

The courts are working off a twenty-year-old Supreme Court decision, Betts vs. Brady. In this case, the Justices of the Supreme Court upheld the decision of a lower court by saying that a farmer named Smith Betts of Maryland had not been entitled to an attorney at the time of his trial for robbery. In Maryland, the practice at the time was to appoint an attorney for a person too poor to hire one on his own, but only when he was charged with rape or murder. With that decision, the Supreme Court set a precedent that the defendant of a lesser crime was not entitled to a court-appointed attorney. Then emerged the "special cases" rule that required the appointment of an attorney if the defendant were illiterate, ignorant, suffering a mental disease or facing a complicated case. One of the biggest problems of that special rule is that a person who is not intelligent enough to handle his own trial is also not likely to be able to file an appeal. It's a circuitous issue - the unlearned man who isn't appointed an attorney probably isn't able to file the paperwork for his appeal to argue that he should have had one. Gideon is the exception and it's by sheer tenacity that he succeeds in filing his appeal with the Supreme Court in keeping with their rules.

It's important to understand the social and legal climate of the day. Many appeals are filed on the right to counsel issue, and the Supreme Court has generally agreed with the petitioner prompting retrials in a number of cases. The fact that the Supreme Court can't seem to draw any clear rule on the issue means that lower court outcomes are often overturned. There's a friction between the Supreme and lower courts over the issue and lack of direction. In addition, the United States has seen the results of a racial dictator gone mad in Hitler's persecution of the Jews and the American people are leaning toward the rights of an individual over the rights of the government. Finally, there has been ongoing discussion of federalism vs. states' rights with some people holding to the idea that the states should have the right to determine how to handle their own criminal court system.

When the time comes for state attorneys to make a statement on the issue, the majority who speak out are in favor of the rule that all felony cases are to be assigned an attorney. The rights of the individual, they say, should outweigh the rights of the government. Not only that, but some argue that the fact that a defendant has an attorney of his own means fewer overturns on appeal and that the legal system is more likely to get at the truth of the case with two competent lawyers meeting in the courtroom.

Gideon himself is granted a new trial on his argument that he should have had an attorney. He makes his selection from a local lawyer who is familiar with the area and Gideon is found "not guilt" of robbing a poolroom in Florida. Asked if he thought he'd accomplished something, Gideon notes that he certainly did. The requirement for all defendants to be given an attorney was soon accepted in every state though each of the states established its own way of handling the case loads.