Make a Gift. Clarence Earl Gideon Florida Dept. Convicted of breaking and entering in Florida, Clarence Earl Gideon set a major legal precedent when he challenged his conviction, claiming that he could not afford an attorney and should have been appointed one by the court.
Gideon, a year-old unemployed Caucasian with a long history of juvenile and adult felonies, was convicted of breaking and entering into the Bay Harbor Pool Room on June 3, , in Panama City, Florida. At around a. Police arrested Gideon on a tip given to them by Henry Cook, a year-old who claimed to have witnessed Gideon absconding with the stolen merchandise.
On August 4, , Gideon went to trial for breaking and entering with the intent to steal. His case came before the court of Judge Robert L. McCrary, Jr. Unable to pay for legal representation, Gideon informed the court, before the trial began, of his inability to procure the help of an attorney.
With no other options, Gideon decided to act as his own lawyer and proceeded to try the case by himself. Without the means to hire an attorney to file an appeal, Gideon wrote his own petition and filed it in the Florida Supreme Court. He argued that the failure of the trial court to appoint counsel for his defense denied him the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Florida Supreme Court denied his petition.
Undaunted, Gideon petitioned the United States Supreme Court, and the Court agreed to appoint counsel to represent him. Gideon next filed a handwritten petition in the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court agreed to hear the case to resolve the question of whether the right to counsel guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution applies to defendants in state court.
The Florida Supreme Court agreed with the trial court and denied all relief. Brady , U. Reversed and remanded. Gideon, of course, but as an officer of the Court, I had learned in law school that lawyers are sometimes called upon by Judges to represent clients who have no money to hire their own lawyer.
I had been appointed by both State and Federal Judges to represent clients before. Gideon had not been supporting his family. By the time of the second trial, his divorce was final. Gideon readily agreed. Preparation for Trial.
Turner recalled that during his early meetings in the jail with Gideon, Gideon was angry and upset that he had to be retried. He told Turner that when the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, he thought that he would immediately be released from custody, not that he would be retried.
He was not motivated by being an historical figure. He was tired of prison and he wanted to get out. He said he could not get a fair trial in Bay County, and wanted the case moved to Tallahassee or Pensacola.
William Harris filed a response on August 1, and the motion was denied that same day without oral argument. The key witness against Gideon was, again, Henry Cook. Turner had represented Cook in a past criminal case, in a criminal case that was eventually nolle prossed.
Perhaps Turner should have gotten permission from Cook before taking Gideon as his client. However, McCrary only had two highly qualified criminal trial lawyers to choose from, and Gideon had asked for Turner.
The relevant Florida ethics rule at the time stated:. Adverse Influence and Conflicting Interests. It is the duty of a lawyer at the time of retainer to disclose to the client all the circumstances of his relations to the parties, and any interest in or connection with the controversy, which might influence the client in the selection of counsel. It is unprofessional to represent conflicting interests, except by express consent of all concerned given after a full disclosure of the facts.
Within the meaning of this canon, a lawyer represents conflicting interests when, in behalf of one client, it is his duty to contend for that which duty to another client requires him to oppose. I doubt that there was any violation of this rule when Turner remained in this case despite his having represented Cook in the past.
First, Cook was no longer his client. I believe that the rule contemplates conflicting financial, property, or other tangible interests that need protection. It is doubtful that protecting a former client from embarrassment is the kind of interest the rule was designed to protect. Even if Turner had asked to withdraw after having been appointed by the court, it is unlikely that McCrary would have granted that request.
The facts that the Supreme Court required the court to appoint counsel, that Gideon requested Turner, and that the number of possible experienced criminal trial attorneys in that circuit to choose from was so limited would have led McCrary to deny such a request.
Turner conducted a thorough investigation. He spoke with the witnesses from the first trial. One was J. Henderson, the owner of the grocery store where the phone booth was located. He also spoke with Irene Rhodes. Turner advised his client to take the proposed deal, but Gideon insisted on going to trial. On July 18, by letter, McCrary denied the request because he had a large number of cases on his docket. At the time this case was set for trial, your [c]lient, Clarence Earl Gideon, stated that this date was agreeable to him.
This trial took place as scheduled on August 5, , almost exactly two years after the first trial. This time, the State Attorney Frank Adams was present. However, the prosecution was almost entirely in the hands of Assistant State Attorney William Harris. The second trial took longer than the first, lasting a full day. The court reporter did not record the jury selection process. However, we know that Fred Turner used peremptory challenges to exclude two of the final prospective jurors.
Turner said that of the final six jurors, three were gamblers. Turner waived opening statement. By keeping his theory a secret, Turner outsmarted the prosecution. He did not disclose his theory until closing argument, when it was too late for the State to offer rebuttal testimony. The testimony in the second trial was similar to the testimony during the earlier trial.
However, it was more detailed and thorough, because lawyers represented both parties. While on the sidewalk in front of the poolroom, he looked through the window and saw Clarence Gideon, who he had known for about six months, through the glass. Cook waited for her to return and spoke with her. He again looked through the front window and saw the cigarette machine with its front removed and empty beer cans on the counter. Turner thought Cook was lying when he said he could see Gideon leaving the poolroom by the back door.
He questioned whether Cook could see through the window of the poolroom well enough to correctly identify Gideon inside. At A. The Impeachment of Cook. Turner apparently thought that this conviction was for an adult felony. However, as it turned out, it was for a juvenile offense. Joyriding is a felony if committed by an adult. The impeachment began with this question by Turner and answer from Cook:. Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
At the first trial, when Gideon cross-examined Cook, the following exchange took place:. Q: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? A: No, sir, never have. This answer during the first trial was accurate. He had been convicted of juvenile delinquency, not a felony.
His answer at the second trial was incorrect, for the same reason. Turner attempted to further pursue the line of questioning. However, Harris instead argued that, to impeach Cook, Turner needed to have a certified copy of the conviction.
The debate was largely about the distinction between impeaching a witness based upon a prior conviction and impeachment based on a prior inconsistent statement.
If the former, a certified copy of the conviction might be required and questioning might be limited. Turner merely wanted to be allowed to ask further questions in order to show the jury that Cook was not credible. How far I can go in proving his criminal record is absolutely true, but I am abandoning trying to prove any further criminality on the part of this witness, but I am simply attacking his credibility because he testified under oath at a prior trial contrary to what he is testifying to here today, and I think the Jury has got a right to know that, its [sic] testing his credibility, it goes purely to that.
The jury was brought back into the courtroom. Turner asked:. Cook, have you ever denied, under oath, that you had been convicted of a felony?
Yes, I did. Where, and when, was that done? Go ahead and ask the question, Mr. BY MR. When and where did you deny your criminal record, Mr. Right here, the last time he was tried, two years ago. Turner impeached and discredited Cook on the basis of his prior inconsistent statement, even though Cook was not lying or knowingly being inconsistent. As a layperson, he could not be expected to know that being convicted of juvenile delinquency is not the same thing as being convicted of a felony.
What did you mean when you said you had not been convicted of a felony, and yet, you say you plead guilty to stealing an automobile?
Turner asked for argument on the motion. The jurors were removed from the courtroom. The jurors were brought back into the courtroom. Harris was allowed to continue:. Do you now know what it is? This did not end the matter. Was that Judge E. Clay Lewis, Jr. Which Judge was it? The Juvenile Judge. The Juvenile Judge? If Turner had known the incident was juvenile delinquency but had deliberately asked Cook if he had been convicted of a felony, Turner would have engaged in unethical conduct. Harris finally conducted a re-direct examination of Cook, asking whether Bert Davenport, the local juvenile judge, had presided over the joyriding case.
Cook reaffirmed that the case had been handled in juvenile court. Turner, however, objected to the question and Judge McCrary, instead of straightening out the confusion that had been created by the wrongful assumption that the joyriding had been an adult offense, and by the two attorneys not knowing the juvenile history of this witness, sustained the objection.
The State did not call Irene Rhodes as a witness. She had been a witness for Gideon in the first trial, but her testimony was more favorable to the State than to Gideon. Henderson and Preston Bray. Turner called J. Henderson testified that shortly after the break-in, Cook had been in the store and had told Henderson what had happened at the Bay Harbor Poolroom.
The State then called Preston Bray, the taxi driver. Bray said no. Turner argued that Gideon left his rooming house and, even though the shortest route to the phone booth would have been to cross the street and walk directly to the phone booth, Gideon instead crossed the street and continued west until he reached the alley. Then he walked north, out of the alley, to the phone booth.
Gideon claimed that he was not carrying a bottle of wine. The routes taken, or alleged to have been taken, by Gideon, Cook, and Rhodes are shown on the diagram below. It seems strange that Gideon did not take the shorter route. Gideon claimed that walking the direct route was difficult.
Gideon knew she had seen this, and that she might be called as a rebuttal witness by the State. To be consistent with her testimony at the first trial, he had to say that he reached the phone booth from the alley—not directly from his rooming house.
A significant piece of evidence was that he was carrying the wine bottle as he emerged from the alley. Gideon himself realized how important the issue of whether he was carrying the wine bottle was, as evidenced by the fact that he testified on his own behalf that he did not drink wine.
If Gideon was carrying the partly empty wine bottle, it was much more likely that Gideon got the wine from the poolroom rather than his boarding house. However, if he had emerged from the alley behind the poolroom carrying a half-empty bottle, the odds were great that he had just obtained that bottle during the poolroom break-in.
The lawyers for the State did not fully understand their own case. They needed to show that Gideon was carrying the bottle of wine as he emerged from the alley, but they neglected to call one of the witnesses who could establish this fact.
Rhodes knew Gideon. She had been drinking with him a few hours earlier. She saw him come from the alley with the wine bottle. She walked across the street to ask him whether the Bay Harbor Bar was open. Gideon left in the taxi before she could reach him, but she picked up the half-empty pint, and then, as she claimed, gave it to her landlord, who was ill, or, according to Henry Cook, who had waited for her to talk to her about the break-in, she drank the remainder of the bottle.
Rhodes and Gideon obviously were friends, and in the first trial, she had given contradictory testimony about whether Gideon had with him the half-empty wine bottle. Gideon Testifies. In his second trial, Gideon decided to testify in his own behalf. For example, he did odd jobs at the Bay Harbor Poolroom, but was never on the regular payroll there. Turner said that while conducting direct examination of his client, he was surprised when Gideon lied.
Here is the exchange he was referring to:. Did you have any beer, wine or whiskey about your person [when Gideon walked across the street and called the taxi to go to the bar in Panama City]? Turner did not call this lie to the attention of the court, and he told me that this had bothered him ever since. He asked whether I thought he should have done something to rectify this false testimony.
I told him that I did not think this lie affected the outcome of the case—that the jurors probably recognized that Gideon was an alcoholic, and alcoholics sometimes cannot admit, even to themselves, that they have a drinking problem. I thought that it was probably not necessary for Turner to correct the statement. In retrospect, I am not sure I was right. Invariably, criminal cases contain ethical questions that the lawyers on both sides must confront.
As we have seen, this case included such questions. A lawyer may not present false testimony. We do not know how Turner knew that Gideon was a wine drinker. If Turner had learned this from Gideon in confidence, Turner would not have been required to correct the lie, because of the rule of professional responsibility that requires confidentiality for such communications.
Therefore, Turner likely should have corrected this error. The Issue of the Missing Cokes. While other witnesses testified that coins from the jukebox and cigarette machine and some beers and wine were missing, only Pitts asserted that Cokes were unaccounted for.
No mention had been made of Cokes at the first trial, and Ira Strickland, the proprietor, did not maintain in his testimony in either trial that any Cokes had been taken. But, this mistake was useful to Fred Turner, who made the most of the testimony. He asked Pitts whether Gideon had beer, wine, or Cokes with him when he was arrested. To the jury, it must have seemed unlikely that a fifty-year-old unemployed drifter and alcoholic like Gideon would have wanted Cokes.
However, young men in their early twenties would have been more likely to take Cokes. This gave Turner his theory of the case: Gideon had not been in the poolroom that morning. He had walked from his rooming house to the phone booth without a bottle of wine. Instead, it was Henry Cook and his friends returning from Apalachicola who had broken into the poolroom, drank beer, and taken the missing items, including the Cokes.
According to Lewis, Turner began by talking about Henry Cook:. He does a peculiar thing [when he supposedly sees Gideon inside the poolroom]. What happened to the beer and the wine and the Cokes? The beer ran out at midnight in Apalachicola. Why was Cook walking back and forth? So, Turner pointed the finger at his own former client. This turn of events again raises the question whether Turner should have refused to take the case in the first place or asked to withdraw at an early stage.
He might not then have known that he would end up accusing his former client of the crime. However, he did know from an early point in the case that Cook would be the key witness for the State.
The answer to the ethical question likely remains the same: with only two experienced criminal trial lawyers in the circuit, it was proper for Turner to accept the appointment to the case, even though he knew that a former client of his would be a key witness. Moreover, if he had tried to refuse appointment or withdraw on ethical grounds, it is highly unlikely that Judge McCrary would have granted the motion.
He and his friends were not prosecuted—in fact, no one else was ever prosecuted for the June break-in at the Bay Harbor Poolroom. The jury found Gideon not guilty at the close of the second trial.
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