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What Is Gideon's Promise?

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Clarence E. Gideon fought for the right for everyone, no matter the special circumstances, to have legal representation in court. This was Gideon’s promise. However, his promise is lost in transition. Although people are now receiving the legal counsel they needed, the quality of the legal counsel is not what they deserve. These counsel are sometimes unfit for the trials they are given causing unfair and often wrongful decisions. There should now be a call for state to regulate how counsel is assigned and the quality of these counsel. There are stories of wrongfully convicted citizens all over the United States. One of such story is that of Troy Lee Jones and how he had received bad counsel, which led him to a death sentence. This should be …show more content…

His defense attorney did not investigate claims that other people might be responsible for the crime committed, allow prosecution to let in Jones criminal history as evidence, allow two guns that are not connected to the crime to be introduced as evidence, and provoke Grayson’s daughter to change her testimony to state that Jones was responsible for Benner’s murder when she state that she did not know before. This inadequacy caused Jones to be convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death row. The California Supreme Court later overturned the case. The daughter also retract her testimony and stated that the police had forced her her testimony. On June, 1996, the prosecution dismiss the charges and Jones was released on November 15, 1996. (Gross, “Troy Lee …show more content…

I do not believe that only one lawyer should be assigned. Depending on the case, it might be very intricate. The one lawyer may not be able to everything that is needed to be done. Providing assistance to the lawyer may speed up the process and obtain all the information needed for the case. I also believe that the lawyer assigned also need to have the ability and skills needed to represent in the cases that are assigned. In that sense, these lawyers knows what is going on and know how to argue for the case. The state needs to have some standards as to how they are paying these lawyers. Depending on the case and the work done, these lawyers may not be paid enough. Paying the lawyers well may give incentives for them to work to the best of their abilities. This can be done by having each state use revenues from the state run lottery. In 2014, Massachusetts state lottery have a profit of $971 million. (Schoenberg, "Massachusetts Lottery Posts $971 Million in Profit in 2014.") Part of this money should be partitioned to accommodate the pay for these

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