Clarence Earl Gideon

On June 3, 1961, $5 (~$50 in 2023 based on inflation [1]) in change and a few bottles of beer and Coca-Cola were stolen from the Pool Room, a pool hall and beer bar that belonged to Ira Strickland Jr. Strickland also alleged that $50 was taken from the jukebox ($437 in 2022 terms).[2] Henry Cook, a 22-year-old resident who lived nearby, told the police that he had seen Gideon walk out of the bar with a bottle of wine and his pockets filled with coins, and then get into a cab. Gideon was later arrested at a tavern.

Too poor to afford counsel, Gideon was forced to defend himself at his trial after being denied a lawyer by the trial judge, Robert McCrary Jr. At the time, Florida law only gave indigent defendants no-cost legal counsel in death penalty cases. On August 4, 1961, Gideon was convicted of breaking with intent to commit petty larceny, and on August 25, Judge McCrary gave Gideon the maximum sentence, five years in state prison.

While incarcerated, Gideon studied the American legal system. He concluded that Judge McCrary had violated his constitutional right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to Florida through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He then wrote to an FBI office in Florida and then to the Florida Supreme Court, but was denied assistance. In January 1962, he mailed a five-page petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States, asking the nine justices to consider his case.[3] The Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal. The case was originally called Gideon v. Cochran and was argued on January 15, 1963. Gideon v. Cochran was changed to Gideon v. Wainwright after Louie L. Wainwright replaced H. G. Cochran as the director of the Florida Department of Corrections.

Abe Fortas (later a Supreme Court justice himself) was assigned to represent Gideon.[4] Florida Assistant Attorney General Bruce Jacob was assigned to argue against Gideon. Fortas argued that a common man with no training in law could not go up against a trained lawyer and win, and that "you cannot have a fair trial without counsel." Jacob argued that the issue at hand was a state issue, not federal; the practice of only appointing counsel under "special circumstances" in non-capital cases sufficed; that thousands of convictions would have to be thrown out if it were changed; and that Florida had followed for 21 years "in good faith" the 1942 Supreme Court ruling in Betts v. Brady.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Gideon's favor in a landmark decision on March 18, 1963.[5]

About 2,000 convicted persons in Florida alone were freed as a result of the Gideon decision,[6] However, Gideon himself was to receive a retrial.[7]

After the decision, Abe Fortas wrote to Gideon suggesting that a Florida lawyer represent him for his retrial in a Florida court. Fortas arranged for a lawyer from Miami who worked with the Florida Civil Liberties Union, and this lawyer also recruited a second Miami lawyer who was an experienced criminal lawyer.[8]

However, in the court of Judge Robert McCrary in Panama City, Gideon said he did not want the Miami lawyers. Asked who he wanted, he said he wanted local lawyer Fred Turner. Turner agreed, and the judge scheduled the retrial for one month later on August 5, 1963 (this would be five months after the Supreme Court decision).[8][9] Judge McCrary also offered to release him on $1,000 bail, but Gideon could not raise the money.[10]

During the trial, Turner brought out that eyewitness Henry Cook had lied in the first trial about not having a criminal conviction. Turner also asked, “Why did they put you off two blocks from your home when they’d driven you sixty miles?”[11] And in his closing statement, Turner suggested that Cook had likely been the lookout for a group of young men who had stolen the beer and coins from the Bay Harbor Pool Room.[9][12] (Turner had in fact been Cook's lawyer in previous cases.[13])

Police Detective Duell Pitts referred to his notes and stated that the following had been stolen from the Bay Harbor Poolroom: 4 fifths of wine, 12 bottles of Coca-Cola, 12 cans of beer, approximately $5 from the cigarette machine, and approximately $60 from the juke box. All of the money was in coins. Detective Pitts stated that Gideon had approximately $25 of coins on him when arrested.[14]

Turner also received a statement from the cab driver who transported Gideon from the phone booth outside Henderson’s Grocery & Market to a bar in Panama City, stating that Gideon was carrying neither wine, beer, nor Coca-Cola when he picked him up, even though Cook testified that he watched Gideon walk from the pool hall to the phone, then wait for a cab. However, the driver did testify that Gideon paid for the ride with six quarters.[15]

The Prosecution brought out that Gideon had said to the cab driver, “If anyone asks where you left me off, you don’t know, you haven’t seen me.” The Defense brought out that Gideon had said the same thing on other occasions, with the cab driver stating, “I understand it was his wife — he had trouble with his wife.” This second part had not been brought out in the first trial.[9][15]

The jury acquitted Gideon after an hour of deliberation.[16]

Anthony Lewis wrote, “Gideon’s insistence on having a local lawyer — Fred Turner — may well have won the case for him. It is doubtful that the Civil Liberties Union lawyers from Miami could have been so effective with a Panama City jury.[17]

Abe Fortas asked Gideon to write a letter telling some about himself. In response Gideon wrote a 22-page, hand-printed letter on prison stationary, with a major concern being for the well-being and custody of his children.[18]

Gideon writes that, although the Florida state welfare agency temporarily provided a lesser amount, they did not provide the regular, ongoing amount of child welfare because both he and his wife had criminal records.[19]

A local church provided some help.[19] And while Gideon and his wife were separated, he had an arrangement with a Florida welfare agency for him to provide $45 a week which was then transferred to his family.[20]

Gideon concluded his letter by writing, “Thank you for reading all of this. Please try to believe that all I want now from life is the chance for the love of my children the only real love I have ever had.”[21]

Gideon’s half-brother, who was a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and moving back home from Japan, adopted the children.[22]

In 1963, Robert F. Kennedy remarked about the case:

If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon had not sat down in prison with a pencil and paper to write a letter to the Supreme Court; and if the Supreme Court had not taken the trouble to look at the merits in that one crude petition among all the bundles of mail it must receive every day, the vast machinery of American law would have gone on functioning undisturbed. But Gideon did write that letter; the court did look into his case; he was re-tried with the help of competent defense counsel; found not guilty and released from prison after two years of punishment for a crime he did not commit. And the whole course of legal history has been changed.[23]