March 2023 Bar Bulletin
By Robert C. Boruchowitz
Sixty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Clarence Earl Gideon, who wrote to them from his Florida prison on a yellow pad, should have had an appointed lawyer when he was tried and convicted for a burglary. In the landmark case of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Court said that in our country, having a lawyer was a fundamental right that protected the other rights of a criminally accused person. The court wrote, “The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries,...
