Gideons Trumpet

Gideon's Trumpet In Gideon's Trumpet Anthony Lewis documents Clarence Earl Gideon's struggle for a lawyer, during an era where it was not necessary in the due process to appoint an attorney to those convicted. Anthony Lewis was born in New York City on March 27th, 1927. As a prominent liberal, Lewis is responsible for several legal works such as, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment, The Supreme Court and How It Works: The Story of the Gideon Case, and Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution. Early in his career, Lewis began writing for the New York Times. Considered at "the far left of the spectrum" he is quite biased with regards to how much involvement the Supreme Court should have in our day-to-day lives. Generally, those who are liberal wish to change laws favoring the citizen, and obviously this carried over into Lewis's pro-stance towards Gideon's plea. The source that Lewis uses frequently throughout Gideon's Trumpet was the United States Reports. It was from these "reports" that Lewis incorporated other famous court cases such as the Bett v. Brady case. Others such as Adamson v. California and Powell v. Alabama were used but were mentioned briefly and barely explained. Lewis did an medicore job of incorporating these court cases relevant ly to Gideon's Trumpet. In Gideon's Trumpet, Anthony Lewis documents steps that Gideon took to ensure he received justice. This began when Gideon first sent a respondence letter to the Supreme Court on Janurary 8th, 1962. This letter followed in forma pauperis which means since Gideon was too poor to pay the traditional fees, his petition could be handwritten (instead of typed) and then reviewed by the Clerk's office. In these letters Gideon exclaimed that he was "illegally imprisoned", due to the fact he was not