Caltrops - Motherfucking News





	[quote name="Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS)"][quote name="Mischief Maker"]Only guilty parties are willing to go through the legal hell of appealing all the way to the supreme court in the criminal law arena.[/quote] I guess you never heard of Clarence Gideon. Was arrested for allegedly robbing a pool hall, back then, if you were convicted of anything except a death-eligible case, you were not entitled to a public defender. So if you were poor and charged with a felony, chances are you didn't have the money to hire a lawyer, and thus you were practically guaranteed to be convicted unless you were lucky enough to either be a sympathetic defendant or had a high-profile case that you got some lawyer to handle your case <i>pro bono</i> Gideon was denied a lawyer because the state was not required to pay for one for any criminal case (U.S. Supreme Court allowed this in <i>Betts v. Brady</i> 1942) unless you were charged with death (the <i>Scottsboro Boys</i> incident required this because of <i>Powell v. Alabama</i>), so the court doesn't give free counsel to non-death defendants. Gideon tried to defend himself as best he could, but was convicted. He lost other appeals, then he wrote a hand-written prisoner appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was accepted, and the court found him counsel to argue his case (you can't argue your case in the Supreme Court unless you're admitted to it to practice, and you also have to be a member of your state bar, i.e. a licensed lawyer, to do so). Supreme Court finds that the odds of being convicted for a person charged with a felony so great without representation (since the prosecuting attorney is bound to be an overworked lawyer with lots of trial practice) and the rules so complicated, that it is unreasonable for a poor person to be forced to defend themselves without some legal representation, so the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that in all felony cases - not just Death Penalty cases - the state must provide you with legal representation (that's the "If you cannot afford one, an attorney will be provided to you at no charge before any questioning," of the <i>Miranda</i> warning.) The Supreme Court reversed its prior finding in <i>Betts v. Brady</i> and Gideon's conviction was overturned. The case of <i>Gideon v. Wainwright</i>, or <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon v. Wainwright">Gideon's Trumpet</a></i> as it is called, guaranteed that all criminal defendants accused of felonies, even poor ones, get at least some legal representation. And when Gideon was retried, now having a lawyer, he was found not guilty. Someone appealing to the Supreme Court does not mean they are guilty any more than refusing to say anything to the police or insisting on a lawyer or invoking the 5th Amendment means you're not innocent of what you're charged. This point was settled in <i>Ohio v. Reiner</i>, 532 U.S. 17 (2001), where a witness who denies everything (and thus is claiming total innocence) still has a right against self-incrimination. "<font color=violet>This Court has never held, however, that the privilege is unavailable to those who claim innocence. To the contrary, the Court has emphasized that one of the Fifth Amendment's basic functions is to protect innocent persons who might otherwise be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.</font>"[/quote]