Florida courts in 1961 did not guarantee poor defendants publicly funded counsel

Evidence

Gideon was tried before a six-member jury in one of Florida’s circuit (trial) courts in August 1961. At the outset of the trial, Gideon requested that a lawyer be appointed to defend him, because he was too poor to hire one himself. But the judge refused Gideon’s request, maintaining that neither Florida law nor the U.S. Constitution required that an attorney be provided. The trial thus proceeded with Gideon representing himself. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 245