Defending Gideon (2013)

Name: Defending Gideon
Director: Rebecca Richman Cohen
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2013
Cast: Martin Sheen, Clarence Earl Gideon

0h 30m IMDb

Documentary

Clarence Earl Gideon was charged with breaking into a pool hall. He could not afford a lawyer to defend him in court, and after a hasty trial, he was convicted. Had Gideon accepted his fate, he'd have been imprisoned for five years. But Gideon did challenge his conviction -all the way to the Supreme Court. The result was the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, which guarantees poor defendants the right to counsel in criminal cases.