Summary Of The Gideon V. Wainwright Case

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Clarence Gideon was charged in Florida state court with breaking and entering. Although Gideon requested the court to provide him with a lawyer, one could only be provided to those that cannot afford it in the state of Florida. Because of this, Gideon represented himself and was sentenced to five years in prison. Gideon then filed a habeas corpus petition due to his belief that the court was in violation of his constitutional right to be appointed an attorney. The petition was denied (Oyez, accessed 2024). The Court decided that the guarantee of counsel is an essential right, as mentioned in the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Sixth Amendment ‘guarantees the rights of criminal defendants’, including the right to a lawyer (Cornell Law School, …show more content…
On the other hand, the negative to this creation is that public defenders normally have bigger case loads with not as much experience and time as a private attorney (S.L. Law, 2022). This could lead to public defenders not making each case a priority. With this, the public defender’s office could be seen as a positive and also a negative development, depending on how one perceives it. In my opinion, however, I think that it was a positive development. Additionally, I firmly believe that the decision in the Gideon v Wainwright case was a benefit to all, especially to those that cannot afford their own. The impact of this case demonstrated the importance of verifying that future cases did not disrupt one’s constitutional rights. In other words, the decision of the case allowed for other cases to confirm that the accused has been given a completely fair trial. The case, Massiah v United States, presents a similar question regarding the Sixth Amendment. The case presented the question of whether a ‘defendant's incriminating statements made without the presence of counsel after a criminal proceeding has begun are admissible as evidence’ (Oyez, accessed
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