Gideon and Argersinger extended counsel to nearly all criminal defendants

Evidence

The Sixth Amendment and analogous state constitutional provisions guarantee defendants the right to counsel in criminal cases. As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainwright (see Chapter 2), states are required to furnish counsel to indigent defendants in felony cases. A later Supreme Court ruling, Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972), extended this right to counsel to all cases in which the defendant could be sentenced to jail or prison. … Some states have gone even further, providing counsel to all indigents charged with misdemeanors. Before these initiatives, many indigent defendants had no legal representation, which was a severe disadvantage, so the requirement that counsel be provided to them revolutionized American criminal justice. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1650

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the doctrinal floor for right-to-counsel across felony and jail-punishable cases.
• XREF: connects to: Pretrial process costs can exceed the actual penalty for minor offenders — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1663; Gideon requires states to provide lawyers to indigent felony defendants — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 906