Thoughts on the 50th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright
When I taught government to high school students, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, was one of only eight Supreme Court cases students in Maryland high schools were required to know - along with Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch v. Maryland, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Tinker v. Des Moines, New Jersey v. TLO, and Miranda v. Arizona. Perhaps a selective review of the Cour's history, with four pairs of related cases. One could note that in pairing Gideon with Miranda an important intervening case (Escobedo v Illinois) was somehow not required.
If one wants to review both the history leading up to the Gideon case as well as to evaluate how it applies today, one can do no better than to read Andrew Cohen's superb piece inThe Atlantic, How Americans Lost the Right to Counsel, 50 Years After 'Gideon'. What I would like to do is focuson the impact of Gideon at the time, and - per the limiting of its reach in subsequent decisions that Cohen describes today - how far we have fallen from what was in my opinion a high point of American jurisprudence as well as a clear statement of an idea of what the rights guaranteed to the people were supposed to mean.
If one wants to review both the history leading up to the Gideon case as well as to evaluate how it applies today, one can do no better than to read Andrew Cohen's superb piece inThe Atlantic, How Americans Lost the Right to Counsel, 50 Years After 'Gideon'. What I would like to do is focuson the impact of Gideon at the time, and - per the limiting of its reach in subsequent decisions that Cohen describes today - how far we have fallen from what was in my opinion a high point of American jurisprudence as well as a clear statement of an idea of what the rights guaranteed to the people were supposed to mean.