From Gideon to Gault ... to What? How Much Has Really Changed?

Fifty years ago today, a homeless 51-year-old with an eighth-grade education, a pencil, and a pad of paper sparked one of the most significant advances in the rights of indigent criminal defendants in United States legal history. In Gideon v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unanimously that criminal defendants facing significant jail time had a right to court-appointed counsel if they could not afford to retain counsel on their own. But how much has really changed?

Clarence Gideon’s story is now well known. When a pool hall in Florida was burglarized for $5 and a few bottles of beer, one eyewitness claimed to have seen Gideon leaving the premises. He was arrested and charged with petty larceny. When Gideon asked the judge at his trial for an attorney because he could not afford one, the judge denied his request, noting that the state would only provide indigent defense counsel for those facing the death penalty. Gideon’s attempt to defend himself failed and the judge sentenced him to the maximum penalty allowed by law – five years in prison.

Through his studies of the U.S. Constitution and legal system in prison, Gideon concluded that his constitutional right to counsel and to procedural due process was violated. Denied relief by the Florida Supreme Court, Gideon crafted a five-page, handwritten petition to the U.S. Supreme Court asking them to consider his complaint. The Court agreed to hear the case and assigned Washington, D.C. attorney (and future Supreme Court justice) Abe Fortas to represent him.

The landmark decision was handed down on March 18, 1963 when the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in favor of Gideon. Just four years later, in In re Gault, the U.S. Supreme Court extended the right to court-appointed counsel to children facing delinquency charges in juvenile court. (In a wonderful twist of fate, Abe Fortas, who argued Gideon, was then on the Court and wrote the Gault decision.)

Today, only 22 states provide full state funding for all indigent defense services at the state level. Of the remaining states, 18 states rely on county funding alone; six other states fund 75% of the costs; Alabama and Louisiana rely on a combination of court costs and state funding; and Pennsylvania and Utah provide no state funding at all to ensure the right to counsel at the county level.

According to the National Legal Aid and Defender Center, “The states' abdication of their constitutional obligation has produced a myriad of indigent defense systems that vary greatly in defining who qualifies for services and the competency of the services rendered … the failure of most to enact measurable indigent defense standards and to establish methods to monitor compliance therewith has produced indigent defense systems across the country that deliver unfair justice to those of limited means.”

The failure to fulfill the promise of Gideon and Gault has had profound consequences for children charged with criminal conduct. We saw the fruits of this failure in Pennsylvania: the Luzerne County ‘kids for cash’ scandal, ensnaring two juvenile court judges and other private individuals in a $2.8 million corruption scandal, was also marked by the wholesale denial of children’s rights to counsel. Sixty percent of Luzerne’s children who went unrepresented were removed from their homes. This was six times the state average placement rate of approximately 10%. 

In more than 20 assessments of state juvenile defender systems completed over the last 15 years by the National Juvenile Defender Center, the most common complaints are a persistent lack of funding and other resources for these programs and a consistently high rate of waiver of counsel. 

Many people believe that juvenile convictions are automatically erased when kids turn 18. Nothing is farther from the truth. Juvenile convictions haunt many kids for the rest of their lives. There are direct consequences, like incarceration, and collateral consequences, like being barred from employment opportunities, higher education, or entry to the military. The right to counsel in juvenile court is more important today than it has ever been. 

After thousands of children’s lives were derailed or permanently destroyed as a result of the Luzerne County debacle, Pennsylvania enacted legislation to deem all children indigent for purposes of appointing counsel. The state went even further by making kids’ right to counsel virtually unwaivable. Pennsylvania then snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by failing to provide a dedicated state funding stream for indigent juvenile defense.  

On this anniversary of the Gideon decision, Juvenile Law Center calls upon elected officials in every state in our nation to balance the scales of justice. We urge each and every citizen to contact your state representatives and demand equal justice under the law – not just for ourselves, but for everyone.

It’s time to make “Justice for All” more than just a pledge.