Gideon's Trumpet

4 Pages 885 Words

Gideon’s Trumpet


Gideon vs. Wainwright was a monument of a case for people all across the country. Maybe it should have never passed by the Supreme Court at all. Betts vs. Brady should have never been overturned and should have remained the common practice throughout the country. The Supreme Court overlooked many important factors in deciding Gideon vs. Wainwright. This case should have been just another case decided by the standard that Betts vs. Brady set back in 1942.
Betts vs. Brady was decided by a majority of six to three. This clearly proved that the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment did not assure a lawyer’s help in a state criminal trial. A lawyer didn’t have to be provided to a person unless he or she had “special circumstances”. Clarence Earl Gideon had none of these special circumstances. In fact, he did quite well defending himself in his own trial. He even cross-examined the witnesses that the prosecution called very completely.
It just seemed like the Justices were biased towards Gideon and Fortas from the beginning. Smith Betts put forth the exact same case to the Supreme Court twenty years earlier. The difference was that different justices sat back then. Six out of nine of them could see the disadvantages of providing lawyers to everyone. Once all the newer justices started, and once Justice Frankfurter retired, they knew they could probably get the majority in overruling Betts vs. Brady.
Federal enforcement of the Gideon case makes for a very inflexible and sterile legal system. Deciding to have every state grant a lawyer to everybody who wanted one really took a lot of power away from the states individually. When the states are allowed to form their own laws and procedures, a wide variety of systems result. It is in these different systems that we get closer and closer to the best way to do things. States should be allowed to experiment with their own legal system...