Talk:Clarence Earl Gideon

Article Suffers from Blatant POV
The general tone of the article suggests that Florida wilfully deprived Mr. Gideon of his constitutional rights. It did not.

Even assuming that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Sixth Amendment applicable to the States, there is nothing in the Sixth Amendment that requires the state to provide a free lawyer. It merely indicates that the state may not prevent you from presenting your case through a lawyer. The Sixth Amendment is designed to prohibit a practice, once followed by the Puritans in Boston, of denying a person the right to use a lawyer, even if he paid for one.

The trial judge denied Gideon's request for a free lawyer, because Florida law did not provide for a lawyer in such cases. Only a person accused of a capital crime was entitled to a lawyer. In adopting and in adhering to this rule, Florida was merely following a precedent laid down by the United States Supreme Court in 1942. The United States Supreme Court, which once held that racial segregation was constitutional, and that it was okay to prohibit black people from registering as Democrats, changed its mind, and ruled against Florida. Good faith reliance on cases decided by the United States Supreme Court apparently is not a defense.

In essence, our form of government is judicial dictatorship, which is no more desirable than any other kind of dictatorship, because the United States Constitution means only what five out of nine justices of the Supreme Court, polled from time to time, say it means.

John Paul Parks (talk) 20:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

That last paragraph is simple nonsense. The country is not "ruled" by the Supreme Court. A dictatorship by definition puts power in the hands of an individual who is responsible to no one. The US judiciary is a check on this kind of power and has a myriad of checks and balances of its own before cases ever get to the Supreme Court. The last paragraph is simply stupid and has no relevant connection to the article. Jelsova (talk) 11:02, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130126041423/http://www.jud14.flcourts.org/CourtReporting/Gideon.pdf to http://www.jud14.flcourts.org/CourtReporting/Gideon.pdf

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American Robber
I only actually read this “wiki” because Clarence was described as an “American Robber” but surely this is the wrong description of him? How ironic! This is my first ever contribution to Wikipedia and I don’t know how I can change that description... but he deserves better! Thanks, Chris Chrislad108 (talk) 12:35, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The article says he was acquitted, so I think that category is inappropriate. I'll remove it. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:08, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Piping in to mention that I just changed the "title description" (separate from the category, shows up on the mobile app or website) to fit the article better. The article mentions he was convicted of robbery in the 1920s, but it's not really related to what he's known for, which is the affirmation that indigent defendants must have counsel. The crime he was initially tried and found guilty of was felony theft, not robbery, anyway. (For the layperson, the difference is that robbery is by force or the threat of force, while theft is taking property that is not theirs, related crimes being burglary or breaking and entering.) hbdragon88 (talk) 05:51, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Where was the pool hall and the original arrest?
This article is not clear at all on geography, since he was born and died in different places. It jumps immediately to the Supreme Court aspect of the eventual case, without defining the locations of the original crime and arrest, nor describes what means of legal income Gideon had at the time, if any.Starhistory22 (talk) 04:40, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Allegedly Gideon had help in writing the petition
Fred Turner, who was Gideon's lawyer in the re-trial, told Bruce Jacob (the Florida Assistant Attorney General) that Gideon had told him that Joseph A Peel Jr, a judge who was convicted of murder and who was in the same prison or maybe even in the same cell with Gideon helped him write his appeal to the Supreme Court. Some links: Where did Clarence Gideon get the idea that he was entitled to a free lawyer?, Gideon v. Wainwright, 50 Years Later, Did Clarence Gideon Write His Appeal?, Gideon: The Elusive Quest for Poor People's Justice. -kyykaarme (talk) 22:09, 21 October 2019 (UTC)