Gideon's Trumpet
How One Man, a Poor Prisoner, Took His Case to the Supreme Court — and Changed the Law of the United States
by Anthony Lewis
5/5
Vintage 288 pages September 4, 1989
The classic backstory of one of the most significant Supreme Court decisions in American history. In 1962, a penniless Florida prisoner named Clarence Earl Gideon sent a handwritten petition to the Supreme Court. The result, Gideon v. Wainwright, established the right to appointed counsel for criminal defendants who could not afford a lawyer.
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Jim's Review
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Anthony Lewis was the Times's Supreme Court reporter when Gideon's pencil-written petition arrived in 1962. He wrote this book three years later, and it remains the gold standard for "how a single case moves through the legal system" reporting. The chapter on Abe Fortas taking the case pro bono — and structuring the oral argument to leave the Court no graceful way to rule against Gideon — is one of the best things ever written about Supreme Court advocacy. Short, clean, and a complete education in how appellate law actually works. Five worms. The book Jim hands to anyone curious about the Supreme Court but unwilling to wade through The Brethren.
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