“If You Cannot Afford a Lawyer, One Will Be Appointed for You”
Or maybe not.
Most Americans probably get their ideas about the criminal legal system from what we used to call television — from shows like Law and Order and its progeny, where determined, hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth detectives arrest suspects while reading them their Miranda rights — including the right to a lawyer. (Note: The more common approach is to bring people in for “voluntary” interviews, talk them into confessing — while avoiding anything that would make the situation a “custodial interrogation” under Miranda — and only then read them their rights.)
The Sixth Amendment says that a person accused in a criminal trial “shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” For a long time, this only meant that, if you could hire a lawyer, the government could not prevent you from having that lawyer help you. Then, for a few decades, it meant that the government had to provide lawyers to poor people, but only in federal courts. In the famous 1963 case Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court finally held that people facing felony charges in state courts also had the right to a lawyer. (Note: With a lawyer, Gideon was acquitted.) Nine years later, in Argersinger v. Hamlin, the Court ruled that people facing any loss of liberty had the right to a lawyer.
