May 18, 2026

FIGHTING BACK - THE PENCIL LETTER THAT CHANGED AMERICA: GIDEON V. WAINWRIGHT

Show Notes
Transcript

A drifter. A pool hall. A prison cell. And the most consequential letter ever written in pencil on prison stationery.

Garret Fisher closes the Fighting Back series with the one story in ten that ends with complete, unambiguous victory — and the one that keeps the whole series honest. Clarence Earl Gideon was a 51-year-old Florida drifter with an eighth-grade education and a long record of minor nonviolent offenses when he was charged with breaking into a pool hall in Panama City in 1961. He couldn't afford a lawyer. The state wouldn't give him one. He represented himself, did his best, and lost. He was sentenced to five years in prison. From his cell, using the prison library and writing in pencil on prison stationery, he handwrote a petition to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court took his case. Appointed one of the best lawyers in Washington to argue for him. And on March 18, 1963, ruled 9-0 that every person accused of a felony in America — no matter how poor, no matter what state, no matter what the charge — has the constitutional right to a lawyer. About 2,000 people were freed in Florida alone. Gideon himself was retried, acquitted in under an hour, and walked out a free man. He died in 1972. He is the reason the system works sometimes. This is his story.

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Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Garrett Fisher. Monday, May eighteenth,

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twenty twenty six. This is the last episode of Fighting Back.

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Ten stories in ten working days, and I saved this

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one for last on purpose, because it's the only one

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where I get to tell you it worked completely, unambiguously.

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The little guy won, and his winning didn't just free him.

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It freed thousands of people behind him, and it changed

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American constitutional law in a way that is still in

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effect today in every courtroom in every state in this country.

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The other nine stories we've covered have endings that are

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complicated and partial and real in the way that real

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things are. The Central Park five were exonerated but lost

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years they'll never get back. Stella Libett got her settlement,

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but spent the rest of her life as a national joke.

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Karen Silkwood's family won in the Supreme Court, and the

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plant closed, and the questions about what happened on that

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highway are still open. These are important stories, and they

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deserve every complication their endings carry. But ten days is

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a long time to spend in the territory of partial

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victories and unresolved mysteries. And I wanted to close somewhere.

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That reminds me, That reminds all of us that the system,

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when a person refuses to accept what it's telling them,

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can sometimes be made to work. Clarence Earl Gideon was

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not a hero in any conventional sense of the word.

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He was a drifter and a minor criminal, and a

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man without resources or credentials or advocates. He had an

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eighth grade education and a prison cell, and access to

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a library and a pencil. He used all of those things,

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and what he produced changed the constitution of the United States.

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Clarence Earl Gideon Gideon was born in nineteen ten and Annibal, Missouri,

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the same town Mark Twain. Grew up in a detail

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that would feel invented if it weren't documented. He ran

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away from home as a young teenager, never finished school

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past the eighth grade, drifted through much of his adult

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life working odd jobs and spending stretches of time in

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and out of prison for minor, nonviolent crimes, petty theft,

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that kind of thing. He was married and divorced multiple times.

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He had children. He was not a stableman or a

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successful one by most measures, but he was not violent,

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and he was not by the accounts of people who

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knew him stupid. He had the particular intelligence of someone

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who has spent a lot of time watching the world

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from the outside and thinking about how it works. By

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nineteen sixty one, he was fifty one years old, living

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in Panama City, Florida, getting by as best he could.

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On the night of June third, nineteen sixty one, the

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Bay Harbor pool Room in Panama City was burglarized. Someone

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broke in between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning,

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broke into a cigarette machine and a jukebox, and left

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with some wine, some soda, and some change. The total

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value of what was taken was not large. The crime was,

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by any objective measure, not a significant one. What made

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it significant was what happened next. Later that morning, a

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witness told police he had seen Clarence Earl Gideon in

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the pool room around five thirty am, leaving with a

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wine bottle, a Coca cola, and some change in his pockets.

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That was the entirety of the evidence against him. One

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person's account of seeing a man at approximately the right place,

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at approximately the right time, carrying items that could have

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been consistent with the burglary or could have been purchased

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somewhere else. Entirely, there were no fingerprints connecting Gideon to

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the crime, no other witnesses, no physical evidence, just one

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man's word. On that basis, police arrested Gideon and charged

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him with breaking and entering with intent to commit petty larson,

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which under Florida law was a felony. The trial, Gideon

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appeared in the Bay County Circuit Court for his trial.

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He was broke. He could not afford a lawyer. He

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asked the judge to appoint one for him, making the

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argument correctly as it turned out that the sixth Amendment

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to the United States Constitution said he had the right

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to legal counsel. The judge's response was patient and specific

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and completely wrong about the law as it would shortly

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be understood. He said that Florida law only permitted the

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appointment of council for defendants facing the death penalty. Since

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this was not a capital case, he could not appoint

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a lawyer. He was sorry the request was denied. The

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exchange that followed is part of the legal record, and

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it's worth sitting with, Gideon, said. The United States Supreme

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Court says, I am entitled to be represented by counsel.

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The judge said he was sorry, but he could not

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do it, and Gideon, a fifty one year old drifter

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with no no law degree, no money, and no institutional support,

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stood up and represented himself. He did a reasonable job,

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by the accounts of those present. He made an opening statement,

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He cross examined the prosecution's witnesses, he called his own witnesses.

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He made a closing argument emphasizing his innocence. The Supreme Court,

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reviewing the record years later, noted that he had done

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about as well as could be expected of a layman

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in those circumstances. It wasn't good enough. The jury found

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him guilty. He was sentenced to five years in the

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Florida State Prison at Rayford. He was fifty one years old.

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He had been convicted of breaking into a pool haul

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on the word of a single witness. He had no lawyer,

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no real means of challenging the evidence, and no obvious

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path to justice. Most men in that situation accept what

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has happened and served the time. Gideon was not most men.

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The prison library. From his cell at the Florida State Prison,

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Gideon started reading law. The prison had a library, as

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most prisons do, and he used it systematically, working through

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the legal materials available to him and building his understanding

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of what the Constitution said and what the courts had

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said about it. What he was looking for was the

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gap between what he believed his rights were and what

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the State of Florida had just done to him, and

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as he read the gap became clearer. The relevant precedent

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at the time was a nineteen forty two Supreme Court

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case called Betts versus Brady, which had held that the

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refusal to appoint council for an indigent defendant in a

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state felony case did not automatically violate due process. It

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was evaluated on a case by case basis, only required

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when special circumstances existed. In practice, this meant that in

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most states, most of the time, poor people facing felony

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charges were doing exactly what Gideon had done, representing themselves

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against professional prosecutors with no training and no resources is

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and losing. Gideon believed Betts was wrong. He believed the

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sixth Amendment said what it said in all criminal prosecutions,

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the accused shall enjoy the right to have the assistance

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of counsel for his defense and that all criminal prosecutions

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meant all criminal prosecutions, not just the ones where the

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defendant could afford a lawyer. He filed a petition for

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habeas corpus with the Florida Supreme Court, arguing that his

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conviction violated the Constitution. The Florida Supreme Court denied it,

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so he wrote to the United States Supreme Court in

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pencil on prison stationary, a handwritten petition from a man

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with an eighth grade education, arguing that the highest court

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in the country had gotten the law wrong twenty years

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ago and that it should reconsider. The petition was rough

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in places and legally imprecise in others, but the core

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argument was right. That the right to council is fundamental

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to a fair trial, that it doesn't mean anything if

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it only applies to people who can pay for it,

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and that the Constitution could not have intended to guarantee

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a right that excludes the people who need it most.

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The Supreme Court received thousands of petitions every year from

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prisoners arguing their cases. They take a small fraction of them.

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They took gideons. After the break, the Supreme Court appoints

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one of the best lawyers in Washington to argue for

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a man in prison, the oral argument that Justice Douglas

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would call the best he'd heard in thirty six years

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on the Court, the nine to zero ruling, and Clarence

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Earl Gideon's second trial, in which he was acquitted in

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under an hour. When the Supreme Court agreed to hear

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Gideon's case, they did something that tells you everything about

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how significant they understood the case to be. They assigned

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him counsel, not a public defender, not a law student.

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They appointed Abe fortas one of the most prominent attorneys

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in Washington, d c. A founding partner of what would

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become the law firm Arnold and Porter, a man who

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would later himself be appointed to the Supreme Court by

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President Johnson. The Court gave the man who was arguing

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that poor defendants deserve excellent legal representation the best legal

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representation they could find. Fords prepared the case with the

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seriousness it warranted. He was arguing not just for Gideon,

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but for the principle that Gideon represented that a constitutional

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right stripped of its practical enforceability is not really a

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right at all. The oral arguments took place on January fifteenth,

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nineteen sixty three, and by all accounts, Fordas was masterful.

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He made an argument that cut through the abstractions of

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constitutional law and landed on something that any reasonable person

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could understand. No one, no matter how educated or capable,

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would willingly face a serious criminal charge without go lawyer

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as evidence. He pointed out that when Clarence Darrow, perhaps

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the most famous criminal defense attorney in American history, a

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man who had spent his entire career inside courtrooms, faced

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his own criminal charges, the first thing he did was

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hire a lawyer. If the greatest courtroom advocate of his

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generation needed counsel when accused of a crime, what possible

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argument was there that a man with an eighth grade

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education didn't. Justice William O. Douglas, who had been on

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the court for thirty six years at that point, later

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called Fortis's argument in Gideon probably the best single legal

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argument he had ever heard. That is a remarkable assessment

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from a man who had sat on the bench for

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more than three decades. Twenty two states filed amicus brief

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supporting Gideon's position, arguing that Betts versus Brady was, as

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they put it, an anachronism when handed down and should

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be overruled. Only two states supported the other side. The

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legal and judicial community had, over the twenty years since Betts,

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come to understand that the precedent was not working and

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was producing outcomes that were fundamentally unjust. Gideon's case gave

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them the opportunity to correct it. Nine to zero. On

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March eighteenth, nineteen sixty three, the Supreme Court issued its ruling.

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The vote was unanimous, nine to zero. Every justice on

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the Court agreed. Justice HUGO. Black, who had dissented in

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Betts versus Brady back in nineteen forty two, who had

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argued then that the majority was wrong, wrote the opinion

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for the Court. And there is something satisfying about that,

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about the man who had been right for twenty years,

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finally getting to say so, and writing on behalf of

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all nine of his colleagues. Black's opinion was direct and clear,

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and grounded in what he believed was the obvious meaning

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of the Constitution the six Amendments. Right to council, he wrote,

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is one of the safeguards of the sixth Amendment, deemed

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necessary to ensure fund of mental human rights of life

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and liberty. That right had always been understood to apply

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in federal courts. The question was whether it applied in

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state courts too, whether the Fourteenth Amendments requirement that states

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not deprive persons of liberty without due process extended to

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include the right to counsel. The Court said yes, unanimously.

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The right to counsel was fundamental. It applied in every state,

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and any state that was denying it to defendants who

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couldn't afford to pay was violating the Constitution. Betts versus

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Brady was overruled twenty one years after it was decided.

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The precedent that had left thousands of defendants without counsel

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and courtrooms across the country was gone, struck down nine

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to zero by the institution that had created it, because

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one man in a prison cell had written a letter

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in pencil arguing that they'd gotten it wrong. The ruling

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didn't directly free Gideon. What it did was give him

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the right to a new trial, this time with a lawyer.

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He chose a local Florida attorney named w. Fred Turner.

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The retrial took place on August fifth, nineteen sixty three,

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five months after the Supreme Court ruling, more than two

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years after the original arrest. Fred Turner took the case

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that Gideon had tried to make without any legal training

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and did what a good lawyer does. He looked at

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the evidence with fresh eyes and started asking questions. The

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prosecution's case rested almost entirely on a single eyewitness, the

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man who said he had seen Gideon at the pool

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room around five point thirty in the morning, leaving with

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a wine bottle and some change. Turner cross examined that

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witness and did what Gideon, without legal training, had been

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unable to do the first time. He picked apart the testimony.

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He showed the jury that the witness's account had inconsistencies.

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He suggested, based on information he had developed in his preparation,

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that the witness may have had a motive to lie,

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possibly even some involvement in the burglary he himself. He

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showed that the physical evidence attributed to Gideon at the

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scene had perfectly innocent explanations. The prosecution's case, which had

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been thin to begin with, collapsed under the scrutiny of

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someone who actually knew how to scrutinize it. The jury

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deliberated for less than an hour. They came back with

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a verdict of not guilty on all charges. Clarence Earl Gideon,

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who had spent two years in a Florida state prison

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for a crime he almost certainly did not commit. Convicted

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on the word of a single witness, denied a lawyer,

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sent away by a system that had told him he

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had no recourse, walked out of that courthouse a freeman.

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He was fifty three years old, He had an eighth

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grade education. He had changed American constitutional law what he

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left behind. The immediate practical effect of the ruling was staggering.

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About two thousand people were freedom Florida alone in the

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months following the decision, people who like Gideon, had been

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convicted without counsel and were in entitled to retrials. Now

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that the constitutional standard had changed, across the country, the

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number of people whose cases had to be reviewed or

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retried ran into the thousands more. Every state had to

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build or expand its public defender system. Every felony defendant

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in America, regardless of their financial situation, now had the

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right to have a lawyer in their corner. The Gideon

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decision is part of a series of war and court

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rulings in the early nineteen sixties that transformed criminal procedure

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in America. It sits alongside Miranda versus Arizona nineteen sixty six,

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which established the right to be informed of your rights

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during police interrogation, and other cases that together built the

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constitutional architecture of what we now think of as basic

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procedural fairness in the criminal justice system. None of those

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protections existed in their current form before people like Clarence

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Gideon refused to accept that the system had nothing to

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offer them. Gideon and s lived until January eighteenth, nineteen

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seventy two, when he died at sixty one, of cancer.

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He had spent the years after his acquittal mostly in obscurity,

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continuing to drift, continuing to struggle. He was not a

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famous man in his lifetime. He did not become wealthy.

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He did not leverage his Supreme Court victory into a

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public profile or a comfortable existence. He lived and died

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as he had always lived, modestly on the margins, without

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the resources that most people take for granted. The constitutional

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right that bears his name has protected millions of people

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he never met and never knew he was protecting. Robert Kennedy,

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who was Attorney General of the United States when the

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ruling came down called it a long step toward the

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goal of equal justice under law. That is a precise

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and honest description, a step, not the destination. The public

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defender system that Gideon created the right to is underfunded

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in most jurisdictions, overworked in virtually all of them, and

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often unable to provide the quality of representation that the

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Constitution theoretically guarantees. The right exists, its full realization does not.

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But the right exists because a man in a prison

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cell who had been failed by every institution in his life,

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decided that the failure was not acceptable and picked up

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a pencil and wrote a letter that's fighting back two weeks.

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Ten stories. Five black and Latino teenagers who were interrogated

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without lawyers and convicted without evidence and exonerated by DNA.

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Young women told to put radium in their mouths and

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trust their employer's word that it was safe. A grandmother

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with third degree burns whose injuries became a punchline for

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a corporate pr campaign. A file clerk who drove into

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the desert and wouldn't stop knocking on doors. A family

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that spent ten years fighting a pharmaceutical company in court,

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and eventually won a Supreme Court ruling that nuclear corporations

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aren't above state accountability, even though Karen Silkwood didn't live

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to see it. Families holding photographs of dead children at

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depositions of Sackler family members, and a drifter with an

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eighth grade education who wrote a letter in pencil that

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nine Supreme Court justices answered unanimously. What connects all ten

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of these stories is the same thing. Every single one

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of them involves a person or a group of people

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who were told explicitly or implicitly, that the system had

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nothing for them, that the corporation was too big, that

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the law was on the other side, that they should

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accept what had happened and move on, And every single

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one of them refused, not because they were certain they

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would win, most of them weren't, but because refusing was

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the only thing that gave the system any chance at

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all of doing what it's supposed to do. The system

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fails constantly, in documented, specific preventable ways. The Central Park

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five told you that Karen Silkwood told you that the

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families waiting on eight thousand dollars settlement checks for dead

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children told you that I cover those failures every single

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day on this show, and I will keep doing it

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because they need to be covered and someone has to

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say the names. But two weeks of fighting back has

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reminded me of the other truth that the system sometimes works,

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and when it works, it is almost always because someone

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refused to let it not. Clarence Earl, Gideon, Karen Silkwood,

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Grace Fryer, Stella Libek, Aaron Brockovich, The Central Park Five,

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the Radium Girls, the families in Hinckley, the families at

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the Purdue Depositions. The production team is back from vacation.

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Tomorrow we return to our regularly scheduled murders, verdicts and

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miserable Defendants on Wednesday. Welcome back everyone, You were missed.

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Someone has to say your name. Do better. Disclaimer Daily

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Crime and Justice is produced by Calaruga Shark Media. This

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episode draws on Gideon versus Wainwright three hundred seventy two

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US three hundred thirty five nineteen sixty three, US Courts,

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educational resources Britannica, Wikipedia and AI assisted Research. We do

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our best to get it right. We are a podcast,

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not a courtroom. This is entertainment and commentary, not legal facts.