Gideon's Trumpet Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Gideons Trumpet - quiz ExampleIt includes an evaluation of the appeal of the work to me, whether that appeal was on a logical or an unrestrained level. The paper weighs in on whether this work to me is worth recommending to others or not, what I would tell them prior to and afterwards reading the work (Lewis Sessions). II. Summary In Gideons Trumpet we have the story of Clarence Earl Gideon, who in the pecker of Lewis launched a campaign through the letters to the overbearing court for the right to have counsel for his case. On the one hand this is the key thread of the book, although a parallel thread looks at the general surgery for appeals in the Supreme Court. At the heart of the story, meanwhile is Gideons letter to the Supreme Court ask the court to essentially have his larceny conviction overturned on the basis of his not having been appoint a lawyer during his trial. Gideon was then in his fifties at that time. Prior to his larceny conviction, for which he wrote the Supreme Court asking for justice, Gideon had been sent to prison four other times, for various felonies. As a gay Gideons problem was related to his being unable to hold down work for any accustomed time, so that he drifted, and supported himself by occasionally engaging in petty thievery, as wellspring as gambling. The impression that people who got to know him personally though, including the authorities, was that he was a harmless man, who had been marginalized by confederation (Lewis Sessions). At the heart of the argument of Gideon, it is said, is the Fourteenth Amendment of the physical composition, and whether or not the amendment clause relating to due surgical procedure translated to a right to counsel for those accused of felony crimes. This has been deemed a federal concern and thus a candidate for auditory modality by the Supreme Court, Gideon having complied with the filing requirements for very poor postulationers such as himself. With the Supreme Court having driven that it is in their jurisdiction to hear Gideons case, they then proceed to assign a lawyer to travel as counsel to Gideon before the Supreme Court, in the person of a top lawyer named Abe Fortas. Betts v Brady was deemed as an important precedent case to be considered in deciding on Gideons petition and the right to counsel doctrine under the Fourteenth Amendment. There is a chapter that further explores the Supreme Court judges individual stands on following precedent or interpreting the literal meaning of the Constitution and striking down laws and precedents that contradicted the letter of the Constitutional law. This is a prelude to Fortas crafting a strategy for Gideons defense, and looks at the nuances of judges arriving at their decisions at the level of the Supreme Court. On the other hand, looking at Gideons case in greater detail, the reader is introduced to certain facts, including that he had been charged with breaking and entering as well as larceny in connect ion with the Poolroom at Bay Harbor facility in June 1961, in the community where he lived at the time, the Bay Harbor Community. Gideons own assessment of his sentence with the justice system in Florida is that of a system that essentially was prejudicial in its application of the process against those who are marginalized. This assessment is given by Lewis together with the narration that Gideon had been exemplary in his behavior in prison, often being of aid to those who had problems with dealing with the legal aspects of their crimes (Lewis Sessions).