ShmoopTube

00:00

Thank you We sneak and here's your shmoop du jour

00:05

Brought to you by a fair trial where law of

00:08

the carnies reign supreme in gideon v wainwright The court

00:11

held that What And hear the potential answers All right

00:14

What was gideon v wainwright all about All right And

00:19

let's go All right It can't be a good feeling

00:21

when one's been arrested and is facing legal charges Trust

00:25

us We've watched a lot of courtroom dramas but even

00:28

in those dark moments the constitution shines a light on

00:31

our legal rights the ones provided by the fifth sixth

00:34

and eighth amendments Well the fifth amendment among other things

00:38

protects us from being a witness against ourselves when we're

00:41

on trial The sixth amendment is all about the right

00:44

to a speedy trial by jury Eighth amendment prohibits all

00:48

that cruel and unusual punishment stuff Those amendments were with

00:52

us from the get go So let's See what gideon

00:54

v wainwright had tto add to the legal mix Did

00:57

the supreme court holden gideon v wainwright that a african

01:00

american defendants tend to receive the death sentence more frequently

01:03

than white defendants No that was fermin v georgia which

01:07

actually led to a suspension of all state death penalties

01:09

for four years until fairer sentencing laws were addressed in

01:13

greg v georgia that rules out a did gideon v

01:16

wainwright provide that seat The states must provide poor defendants

01:20

with a lawyer in on ly capital cases Ever hear

01:23

of the scottsboro boys Well they were a group of

01:26

nine black men accused of raping two white women and

01:30

all but one of them were sentenced to death after

01:32

some very quick one day trials even though their lawyer

01:36

had almost no time to prepare Well the supreme court

01:39

overturned those convictions in powell v alabama arguing that the

01:42

state must appoint a lawyer for poor defendants when accused

01:46

of a capital crime which means one where someone might

01:49

be executed Right So we can drop all charges against

01:53

c did the supreme court rule in gideon v wainwright

01:56

that d all arrested persons are entitled to a reasonable

02:00

bail Well actually protection from excessive bail dates all the

02:03

way back to the eighth and then itself so we

02:05

can get rid of it What about the idea that

02:07

e arrested persons must be informed of their rights upon

02:10

Arrest Remember miranda v arizona Yeah that's where the supreme

02:15

court ruled that suspects under arrest must be informed of

02:18

the right to an attorney and the right to remain

02:20

silent basically all the rights we've gone over in this

02:23

question So if he has the wrong rights for us

02:26

that means that in gideon v wainwright the court held

02:28

that beat the states must provide poor defendants with a

02:32

lawyer in all cases taking things one step further than

02:36

pal v alabama gideon v wainwright established the right to

02:39

counsel for all cases In other words if we can't

02:42

afford an attorney the state must provide us with one

02:46

paid for by the public's tax dollars so that we

02:49

can have a fair trial That makes be the correct

02:51

answer The right to a free attorney in all trials

02:54

was a huge step forward for protecting the rights of

02:57

the accused But if our lawyers working for free well 00:03:01.128 --> [endTime] sometimes we uh we get what we pay for

Full Transcript