Florida State Archives

Clarence Earl Gideon was 50 when he was convicted of burglary in 1961.

If you've heard of Clarence Earl Gideon at all, it's probably because of a movie you had to watch in school. He deserves better, though, because 50 years ago Monday he fundamentally changed the American legal system and your rights if you are accused of a state crime.

In Gideon v. Wainwright, a unanimous Supreme Court declared on March 18, 1963, that the states were required to provide legal counsel for defendants in felony cases who could not afford an attorney. In doing so, it accepted the reasoning of a poorly educated Florida gambler and ex-con who wrote out his habeas corpus petition to the court by hand.

Federal courts had been required to provide counsel for indigent defendants in felony cases since 1938. But over the next 25 years, the Supreme Court let several opportunities pass by to impose the same rule on state courts, which had discretion to develop their own ways to ensure a fair trial in cases that didn't involve the death penalty.

"If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon had not sat down in prison with a pencil and paper to write a letter to the Supreme Court, and if the Supreme Court had not taken the trouble to look at the merits in that one crude petition among all the bundles of mail it must receive every day, the vast machinery of American law would have gone on functioning undisturbed," Robert Kennedy, then the U.S. attorney general, said in an address in Boston later that year (.pdf).

"But Gideon did write that letter," he said. "The court did look into his case. He was retried with the help of competent defense counsel, found not guilty and released from prison after two years of punishment for a crime he did not commit. And the whole course of legal history has been changed. I know of few better examples than that of a democratic principle in action."

Today, indigent defendants are legally guaranteed representation across the U.S. But in the 50 years since the decision, the quality of their representation has been called into doubt. In a new book timed to mark the anniversary, "Chasing Gideon," author Karen Houppert argues that "we have not delivered on the promise of Gideon."

"These public defenders I talked to were looking at 200 felony cases or 225 misdemeanor cases for a single attorney," Houppert, a former staff writer for The Village Voice and media fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said.

"As a result, they're forced to persuade people to plead guilty without investigating what actually happened, without talking to a single witness in the case," she said. "There are thousands of people languishing in jail without a lawyer — and thanks to budget constraints, people aren't really getting their day in court with a lawyer standing there defending them."

A court looking for an opening
Clarence Earl Gideon, 50, was arrested June 3, 1961, after about $5 in change and some beer and soda were stolen from a pool room in Panama City, Fla. Representing himself because the trial judge rejected his request for a court-appointed lawyer, Gideon was convicted Aug. 4, 1961, of breaking and entering with intent to commit petty larceny. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

Read Clarence Earl Gideon's handwritten habeas corpus petition to the Supreme Court.

While in prison, Gideon read up on the law, and he became convinced that the federal requirement to provide counsel had to apply to the states through the 14th Amendment, which courts have long held extended the Bill of Rights to the states.

Hitting a roadblock when he sought help first from the FBI and then from the Florida Supreme Court, Gideon — probably with the assistance of his cellmate, Joseph Peel, a lawyer who had been convicted of killing a judge's wife —  mailed a handwritten five-page petition in January 1962 to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his appeal.

(The case has gone down in memory as Gideon v. Wainwright, thanks to the book "Gideon's Trumpet" by Anthony Lewis and the 1980 TV movie of the same name starring Henry Fonda. But right up until the court reached its decision, it was actually called Gideon v. Cochran — Louie L. Wainwright became famous as the respondent only because he replaced H.G. Cochran as director of the Florida Division of Corrections after the court heard arguments on Jan. 15, 1963.)

Bruce Jacob, the assistant state attorney general who argued Florida's side, believed the court was looking for a chance to overturn a 1942 case called Betts v. Brady, in which it declined to impose an absolute rule requiring legal representation for every indigent criminal defendant in noncapital cases, he wrote in a 2003 paper for the Stetson University Law review on the 40th anniversary of Gideon.

Read the full paper by Bruce Jacob (.pdf)

His goal, he wrote, was to limit the scope of whatever new standard the court came up with.

"We hoped ... that the new rule would not be made retroactive, because we did not want such a decision to result in the release of large numbers of prisoners from the state penitentiary who had been convicted without counsel," he wrote.

If there was any doubt about the court's objectives, it was likely erased when the justices appointed Abe Fortas, one of the most prominent lawyers in America, to represent Gideon. Fortas was Vice President Lyndon Johnson's personal lawyer and was appointed to the Supreme Court just two years later.

In a 1969 letter to the Harvard Law Record, Jacob wrote that it was "obvious, during the argument, how deeply the court was committed to the overthrow of Betts v. Brady and its progeny":

Never in the eighteen cases which I had previously argued in the Florida Supreme Court and other appellate courts had I encountered anything like the zeal and emotion that emerged in the questioning. Anger seemed to characterize my most relentless questioner. ... Florida's position was obviously hopeless; my ten months of work devoted to the case were of little avail.

The decision came down two months later, written by Justice Hugo Black, who had been on the losing side of the 1942 Betts decision.

"From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law," Black wrote. "This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him."

Five months later, Gideon was retried, this time with a court-appointed lawyer. The new jury acquitted him after only an hour of deliberation.

'He had the guts to say: "That's not fair"'
Clarence Earl Gideon died of cancer in 1972, apparently without ever again running into serious trouble with the law.

As a result of Gideon v. Wainwright, more than 4,000 Florida inmates got retrials or were simply released, Florida corrections records show. (There's no reliable record of how many retrials ended in acquittals.)

Jacob wrote in his 2003 law review article that even though he was on the losing side, it was clearly the right decision. Jacob went on to a distinguished legal career — which included stints as a public defender and as an advocate for legal reform. He taught at several law schools, including Harvard's, and served as dean of the Stetson University College of Law in DeLand, Fla.

Forty-seven of the 50 states now have statewide public defender offices, according to the National Center for State Courts (individual counties serve that function in Alabama, Maine and Utah).

Even if they're not always effective, those offices are a monumental legacy to Gideon, Houppert said.

"It's incredibly moving to read Gideon's letters — he was making such a good and sincere argument. And it's touching to me that he was somewhat illiterate — it's full of spelling mistakes and handwritten in pencil," she said.

"As Americans, it's moving to us to see someone take a stand against the big guys, that he had the guts to say: 'That's not fair. I'm an American, and this isn't right.'

"It's incredible, because he was nobody."

Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

Watch the top videos on NBCNews.com

New York State Criminal Justice Services / AP

Matthew Matagrano

A New York-area man who snuck into jail for visits may soon get the chance to become a permanent resident.

Yonkers, New York, resident Matthew Matagrano was arraigned Saturday on charges that he impersonated a Department of Correction investigator so that he could gain access to prisons, including Rikers Island and the Manhattan Detention Center.

Once inside, the 36-year-old gave cigarettes to inmates and smoked them in the common areas. Matagrano himself had been locked up for a rap sheet that includes sodomy and sexual abuse, and he is a registered sex offender.

New York City officials says that for at least a week Matagrano had been using fake credentials and a uniform to gain access to prisons where he would hang out with inmates. A surveillance camera caught Matagrano during one of his visits, according to a criminal complaint. Upon entry, he said he was an investigator from the department’s intelligence unit.

It’s unclear why he wanted to break into jail, but this is not the first time Matagrano  pretended to be something he’s not to gain access. He had previously been caught posing as a Board of Education worker so that he could get into two schools and look through student records. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to attempted burglary.

It’s also unclear why someone with a criminal past could so easily gain access to prisons. A spokesperson for the Department of Corrections told NBCNewYork.com only that “The apprehension this afternoon of Mr. Matagrano occurred within 24 hours of the department learning of the matter.”

The investigation is ongoing and there may be uncovered that Matagrano snuck into even more New York-area prisons.

He is charged with burglary, possession of forged instruments, larceny and promoting prison contraband. A judge set bail at $50,000.

The Associated Press and NBCNewYork contributed to this report.

Two British men are free on bail after they were arrested in connection with the trial of a New York cop accused of plotting to kill and eat dozens of women, police said.

One of the men was identified Friday as Dale Bolinger, 57, of Canterbury, is alleged to be the man known as "Moody Blues," who prosecutors in New York say was an online "mentor" to former New York police Officer Gilberto Valle.

Valle, 28, is on trial on charges of conspiring to kidnap women and illegally accessing a government database to research potential victims. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

Bolinger acknowledged that he had been suspended from his job as a nurse at East Kent Hospital after he was detained by Kent police last week on suspicion of conspiracy, child grooming and possession of child abuse images.

An unidentified 30-year-old man was also arrested in the Canterbury area as part of the investigation, Kent police said Thursday in a statement. They are free on bail "while inquiries continue," it said.

Bolinger denied the allegations, telling reporters outside his home, "I have to leave it to the police," the Kentish Gazette reported Friday.

Prosecutors have introduced extensive, highly gruesome material from Valle's computer to convince a jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that Valle planned to kidnap, torture, kill and eat dozens of women, at least four of whom he had attended high school or college with. Valle's wife turned over the computer to police and fled to Nevada after discovering the materials.

One of the women allegedly targeted in the plans was a woman named Kimberly, who was a frequent topic of discussion between Valle and the British man calling himself Moody Blues, who prosecutors said also used the email address "MeatMarketMan."

Jane Rosenberg / REUTERS

Gilberto Valle III, 28, is seen in this courtroom sketch with his attorney Julia Gatto in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Oct. 25.

Among the less sickening exchanges prosecutors have introduced was titled "Abducting and Cooking Kimberly: A Blueprint." It included a photo of Kimberly Sauer, a former classmate of Valle's at the University of Maryland, prosecutors said. 

"I can knock her out, wait until dark and kidnap her right out of her house," Valle wrote, according to prosecutors. 

FBI Agent Corey Walsh testified that Moody Blues advised Valle to try eating his victims alive, but Valle responded: "I'm not really into raw meat."

In another email message, Valle allegedly told Moody Blues about a softball player he knew who was "the most desirable piece of meat I've ever met." Moody Blues suggested knocking her out with a baseball bat, saying it would be "poetic justice," the jury was told.

Valle has pleaded not guilty. On the opening day of his trial, his attorney told jurors Monday that Valle had been having disturbing fantasies since he was a teenager but never had any intention of acting on them.

Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

A Connecticut legislator has proposed a bill that would allow the appointment of an advocate to act on behalf of an animal during court proceedings.

Connecticut State Rep. Diana Urban proposed the bill, known as HB 6310, "An Act Concerning Animal Advocates in Court Proceedings." It would permit a veterinarian with the Department of Agriculture to be appointed as an advocate for an animal whose welfare or custody is the subject of a civil or criminal court proceeding.

"HB 6310 would give the option for an advocate in court for an egregiously injured animal," said Urban, a Democrat from North Stonington, Conn. "This would enable the animal's injury to be identified as a red flag for future violent behavior. We are putting together a public/private partnership with the state Department of Agriculture and nonprofit rescue groups including Connecticut Votes for Animals to be available to speak for the animals in court."

Also on NBCConnecticut.com: New backlash over Conn. state budget

Urban was joined at a news conference Thursday by Asa Palmer, a North Stonington high school student who discovered two of the cows on his family farm shot in the face in January. One of the cows had to be euthanized.

"If this was in place today, Asa Palmer could request an advocate for his young cow, 'Angel,' who was shot in the face and left with her jaw hanging off," Urban said.

Two men have been charged with shooting Palmer's cows.

The bill, which is awaiting action in the legislature's Judiciary Committee, has the support of other lawmakers.

Also on NBCConnecticut.com: Caregiver charged after elderly woman is found on snow bank

"Much like our children who cannot advocate on behalf of themselves, innocent animals that are abused or worse, killed, deserve that same right," said Rep. Brenda Kupchick, a Republican from Fairfield, Conn. "Violence of any type is unacceptable and we must do whatever we can to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves."

It was not clear if or when the Judiciary Committee would take action on Urban's bill.

Paul Beaty / AP file

Joel Brodsky, left, and Steven Greenberg, attorneys for Drew Peterson, conferred outside the Will County Courthouse in Joliet, Ill., in more cooperative times during Peterson's murder trial Sept. 6, 2012.

Drew Peterson, the ex-cop convicted of killing his third wife and whose fourth wife mysteriously disappeared, was in an Illinois courtroom Tuesday hoping for a new trial, but the proceedings were overshadowed by a vicious spat among members of the legal team that lost his murder trial last year.

The hearing recessed late Tuesday afternoon and was to resume Wednesday morning. If the judge rejects the request for a new trial, Peterson, 59, a retired Bolingbrook, Ill., police sergeant, could be sentenced immediately for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, who died in 2004.

Peterson — who first became famous after his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, vanished in 2007 — could face up to 60 years in prison for his conviction in September.

Peterson's current lawyers argue that their former colleague Joel Brodsky — Peterson's lead trial counsel — botched his defense, justifying a new trial. Before the hearing Tuesday in Will County, Brodsky vigorously disputed that contention.

"I fought for five years defending Drew Peterson, very skillfully so," Brodsky told reporters.

Brodsky in particular disputed Peterson lawyer Steve Greenberg's  argument that it was his decision alone to call Stacy Peterson's divorce attorney during the trial. The attorney, Harry Smith, testified that Stacy Peterson told him that Drew Peterson killed Savio and that he warned his client that she had to tell someone. 

"Not only did they support (calling Smith, but) they realized it was the only move we could make, and I even have emails from Greenberg not only approving Smith being called, but actually suggesting a question or two that I ask him," Brodsky said.

The enmity between the lawyers is so deep that Brodsky withdrew Tuesday from representing Peterson in a in a wrongful death civil suit filed by Savio's sisters. After the retrial hearing, a second judge will hear that suit.

The lawyers' dispute threatened to overshadow the possibility that Peterson himself could be called to the stand, NBC 5 of Chicago reported. And even Greenberg acknowledged that it was a thin reed on which to base a decision to overturn Peterson's conviction.

"We're definitely facing an uphill battle today," Greenberg said. 

NBC Chicago: Drew Peterson returns to court to request new trial

"But I'm confident," he added. "I know the law is on our side. I know the facts are on our side. ... Some people say it's a cold day in you-know-what when things happen. Well, it's cold today, so maybe it will happen."

Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

Related Content: 

• How will ex-cop Drew Peterson fare in prison?
• Drew Peterson fires one of his defense attorneys
• Holdout juror in Drew Peterson trial says hearsay evidence swayed him
• Will Drew Peterson's verdict be overturned?

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 19, 2013 8:16 PM EST

Multnomah Sheriff's Office

Mohamed Osman Mohamud in a booking shot taken upon his arrest Nov. 26, 2010. Mohamud was found guilty on terror charges Thursday.

A federal jury found an Oregon man guilty of federal terrorism charges on Thursday, rejecting the defense team's argument that Mohamed Mohamud was entrapped or induced by a yearlong FBI sting that began to target him when he was a teenager.

Mohamud was accused of leading a plot to detonate a bomb at Portland's 2010 Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. But the device he thought was a bomb was a fake, supplied by undercover FBI agents posing as members of al-Qaida.

Mohamud sat still, giving no visible reaction as Thursday's verdict was read. His attorney, Steve Sady, later said an appeal was being planned after the scheduled May 14 sentencing.

"We are disappointed with the verdict," Sady said. "We obviously though he was entrapped."

Mohamud faces up to life in prison at his sentencing.

Prosecutors had argued that Mohamud was predisposed to terrorism as early as 15 years old.

Mohamud, now 21, traded emails with an al-Qaida lieutenant later killed in a drone strike. He also told undercover agents he would pose as a college student while preparing for violent jihad.

"We are hopeful that this will bring closure and healing to all of us here in Portland," said Amanda Marshall, U.S. Attorney for Oregon. "This case has been a difficult case for the city of Portland. It's been a particularly difficult case for Mohamed Mohamud's community, for his family, for the Somali community."

Mohamud was never called to testify. Instead, the jurors saw thousands of exhibits and heard hours of testimony from friends, parents, undercover FBI agents and experts in counterterrorism, teenage brain development and the psychology of the Muslim world.

"Mr. Mohamud made a series of choices over a period of several years — choices that were leading him down a path that would have ended in violence," said Greg Fowler, who leads the FBI office in Portland. "His actions showed little regard for the rights and responsibilities that come with being an American or respect for the lives that he was prepared to take."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight told the jury earlier this week that the decision would be easy. Mohamud pressed a keypad button on a black Nokia cellphone and intended to kill people. Whatever else they might think about the methods of undercover agents or the government's decision to investigate a teenager, the underlying decision was Mohamud's and the motivation was hatred of the West.

"It's too early to tell about sentencing specifically," Knight said on Thursday. "We'll have to wait and see what further investigation, the presentencing report, will say about the defendant."

Sady had argued that Mohamud wasn't radicalized by online recruiters or friends with jihadist leanings, but rather by a Justice Department hungry for convictions that ignored every caution sign along the way. Undercover agents manipulated Mohamud's faith and plied him with praise and the promise of a life leading other jihadis, Sady said.

Mohamud could be ordered to serve life in prison.

Previous story: Trial in Oregon's alleged Christmas bomb plot to turn on 'entrapment'

© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

nbclosangeles.com

Rickie Lee Fowler

An arsonist convicted on five first-degree murder counts in connection with the deadly 2003 Old Fire above San Bernardino was sentenced Monday to death.

Judge Michael Smith confirmed the sentence, recommended by a jury in September, for Rickie Lee Fowler. The judge had the option of life in state prison without possibility of parole.

Five men died after heart attacks suffered during evacuations forced by the 91,000 acre fire.  Fowler was convicted in August on the murder counts and two arson counts.

Read more at NBC Los Angeles

The Old Fire was one of several wildfires that burned in California in October 2003. Fowler fell under suspicion when witnesses reported seeing a passenger in a van toss burning objects into dry brush. Investigators interviewed Fowler several months after the fire, but did not have enough evidence to file charges until six years after the fire.

Fowler was already in prison on a burglary conviction at the time charges were filed. The van's driver was later shot and killed in an unrelated incident.

The Old Fire also damaged more than 1,000 homes.

"Today, after nearly ten years, justice has now been secured for the victims and their families, and those whose lives were affected by the actions of Rickie Lee Fowler," said San Bernardino District Attorney Michael Ramos.