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Xavier Cortada, Gideon v. Wainwright, 48″ x 36″, oil on canvas, 2004

GIDEON V. WAINWRIGHT
372 U.S. 335 (1963)

If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence
Earl Gideon had not sat down in prison with a
pencil and paper to write a letter to the Supreme
Court; if the Supreme Court had not taken the
trouble to look at the merits in that one crude
petition among all the bundles of mail it must
receive everyday, the vast machinery of
American law would have gone on functioning
undisturbed. But Gideon did write that letter;
the court did look into his case; and he was re-
tried with the help of competent defense
counsel; found not guilty and released from
prison after two years of punishment for a crime
he did not commit. And the whole course of
legal history has been changed.

(Kennedy, 1963)