Anthony Lewis was a columnist for the New York Times. He was previously its
Chief London Correspondent and before that was the Times Washington Bureau, covering the Supreme Court and the Justice Department. Mr. Lewis was born in 1927 in New York City. After graduating from Harvard in 1948, he spent four years with the Sunday department of the New York Times and then became a general assignment reporter for the Washington Daily News. While working for the News he won a Pulitzer Prize for national correspondence and the Heywood Broun Award in 1955 for a series of stories on the Federal loyalty - security program. He was a Nieman Fellow in 1956-1957. In 1963 he won a second Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Supreme Court. He is the co-author, with the New York Times, of Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution. (Lewis, 278).
He is married to Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, who was formerly the General Counsel and Vice-President at Harvard University. She wrote the majority opinion in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts. (Wikipedia)
Given this basic outline of the author's history it is no wonder he is writing a book regarding the Gideon vs. Wainwright case. This is the story of "how one man, a poor prisoner, took his case to the Supreme Court - and changed the law of the United States." In my opinion the author's background, time, or place does not give an obvious bias one way or another to the conclusion reached. What Lewis does is tell the story of a poor man in Florida whose case may have turned out differently had he been appointed a lawyer instead of trying to defend himself. At that time their was not a law that "if you can not afford a lawyer one will be appointed to you" like we here every day on many popular cop and law television shows. This man did the best he could with what little education he had behind him and was forced to defend himself. What Lewis does is tell the story, completely fact based with references and what appears to be of very little opinion of his own.
The facts are as follows:
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In the case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants unable to afford their own attorneys. (Wikipedia)
The Supreme Court ruled in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932), the famous case of the Scottsboro Boys, that the right to counsel was implied in the Bill of Rights and was an essential freedom. In Betts v. Brady, 316 U.S. 455 (1942), the Court modified this doctrine slightly, ruling that whether or not a lawyer was required would depend on the circumstances of each case. Specifically, the Court focused on a case-by-case determination of whether the lack of representation affected a denial of due process, rendering the trial unfair. Over the next twenty years, the Court heard several more cases, and in all of them ruled that in fact a lawyer was required. Due to the difficulty of proving the high standard of a due process error, nearly all such cases involved the death penalty. This view hadn't changed by the early 1960s. (Wikipedia)
In 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon had been charged with burglary for breaking into a pool hall in Panama City, Florida and taking beer, wine, and change from the vending machines after he had been found with some wine in his possession and some change in his pockets. He appeared in court too poor to afford counsel, whereupon the following conversation took place:
The COURT: Mr. Gideon, I am sorry, but I cannot appoint Counsel to represent you in this case. Under the laws of the State of Florida, the only time the Court can appoint Counsel to represent a Defendant is when that person is charged with a capital offense. I am sorry, but I will have to deny your request to appoint Counsel to defend you in this case.
GIDEON: The United States Supreme Court says I am entitled to be represented by Counsel.
Gideon had been forced therefore to act as his own counsel, and conducted a defense of himself in court, emphasizing his innocence in the case. Nevertheless, the jury returned a guilty verdict, sentencing him to serve five years in the state penitentiary. (Wikipedia)
From his prison cell, at Florida State Prison, making use of the prison library, and writing in pencil on prison stationery, Gideon appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in a suit against the Secretary to the Florida Department of Corrections, Louie L. Wainwright. His argument was that he had been denied counsel and, therefore, his Sixth Amendment rights, as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, had been violated. (Wikipedia)
The court assigned him a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney, Abe Fortas (later a Supreme Court justice from 1965-1969) of the law firm Arnold & Porter. (Wikipedia)
The decision was announced on 18 March 1963; the opinion of the Court was delivered by Justice Hugo Black. The two concurrent opinions were written by Justices Clark and Harlan. (Wikipedia)
In it, the court specifically praised its previous ruling in Powell v. Alabama, and overruled Betts v. Brady, which allowed selective application of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to the states, itself previously binding only in federal cases. Instead, the court held that the right to the assistance of counsel was a fundamental right, essential for a fair trial, thereby emphasizing the procedural safeguards which were needed for due process of law. In this sense, the specifically that no one, regardless of wealth, education or class, should be charged with a crime and then be forced to face his accusers in court without the guidance of counsel. (Wikipedia)
Justice Clark's concurrent opinion stated that the Constitution makes no distinction between capital and noncapital cases, so a defender needs to be provided in all cases. Justice Harlan's concurrent opinion stated that the mere existence of a serious criminal charge constituted in itself special circumstances requiring the services of counsel at trial. (Wikipedia)
The court remanded the case to the Supreme Court of Florida for "further action not inconsistent with this decision." Gideon was then retried: represented by W. Fred Turner, his appointed counsel in this second trial, he was acquitted. (Wikipedia)
Gideon v. Wainwright was one of a series of Supreme Court decisions which confirmed the right of defendants in criminal proceedings to counsel during trial, on appeal, and in the subsequent cases of Massiah v. United States 377 U.S. 201 (1964) and Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966), even during police interrogation. (Wikipedia)
And these are the same facts that Lewis gives us throughout his book. This case has changed history. If not for the struggles of Clarence Gideon there is no telling how the law would stand today. Who would have ever thought that a poor man from the depths of Florida would ever make history for something such as this. In the process of his trial I believe Gideon learned more about the legal system then many people who take it for granted.
References
Lewis, Anthony. (1964). Gideon's Trumpet.
New York: Vintage Books: A Division of Random House
Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. Anthony Lewis.
Retrieved March 24, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Lewis
Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. Gideon vs. Wainwright.
Retrieved March 24, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_v._Wainwright