The Florida Supreme Court denied Gideon’s petition. Gideon next filed a handwritten petition in the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court agreed to hear the case to resolve the question of whether the right to counsel guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution applies to defendants in state court.

Miranda v. Arizona

On March 18, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, unanimously holding that defendants facing serious criminal charges have a right to counsel at state expense if they cannot afford one.

Sixth Amendment Activities

• Batson v. Kentucky. Jury selection and race.
• J.E.B. v. Alabama. Jury selection and gender.
• Carey v. Musladin. Victims’ free expression rights and defendants’ rights to an impartial jury.
• Gideon v. Wainwright. Indigent defendants and the right to counsel.
• In re Gault. Juveniles and the right to counsel.

The vote of the Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright was that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is a fundamental right applied to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution’s due process clause, and requires that indigent criminal defendants be provided counsel at trial.

Plaintiff Joseph Frederick

Nonsensical speech is not protected by the First Amendment or, at least, is given less protection than rational speech. Even if Frederick’s speech were simply nonsensical, Morse could have restricted it without violating the First Amendment.

Students can speak, write articles, assemble to form groups and even petition school officials on issues. The U.S. Supreme Court has said that students “do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression at the schoolhouse gate.”