Law: Gideon Vs Wainright

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obscured by the Fourteenth Amendment which states, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." As a result, many questions begin to arise which seek to determine the true right of the accused to the assistance of counsel. Should legal counsel be provided by the government if the accused lacks the funds to assemble a counsel for his defense? Or, on the other hand, does this amendment set the responsibility of assembling a defensive counsel on the accused even if he or she lacks the funds to do so? Also, do the states have the right to make their own legislation regarding the right of the indigent accused to have counsel appointed to them in the state trials, or does the Fourteenth Amendment prevent this? The Supreme Court was faced with answering these questions in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright.
In June of 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon, a fifty year old petty thief, drifter, and gambler who had spent ...

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ensured by the Sixth Amendment was only applicable to federal cases, and states had the right to handle the matter of the appointment of legal counsel to the defense in state cases at their discretion (Asch, 135). This practice was an effect of the outcome of the United States Supreme Court case of Betts v. Brady decided in 1942. In this case, an unemployed farm worker in Maryland named Smith Betts was charged with robbery requested that the court appoint counsel to his defense. The judge denied this request on the grounds that in that county it was not practice in that county for the court to appoint counsel to poor defendants only in capital cases. Like Gideon, Betts conducted his ...

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