The Gideon Trials

• Author: Bruce R. Jacob
• Position: Dean Emeritus and Professor, Stetson University College of Law
• Pages: 2059-2101

2059

The Gideon Trials

Bruce R. Jacob

I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 2060

A. THE OFFENSE, ARREST, CHARGE, AND DENIAL OF COUNSEL ............. 2060

B. CLARENCE EARL GIDEON ................................................................ 2061

C. JUDGE MCCRARY ............................................................................ 2064

D. WILLIAM HARRIS ........................................................................... 2065

II. DENIAL OF COUNSEL: GIDEON’S FIRST TRIAL ...................................... 2065

A. FLAWS DEMONSTRATED IN THE OPENING COLLOQUY ....................... 2066

B. JURY SELECTION AND OPENING STATEMENTS ................................... 2069

C. IRA STRICKLAND’S TESTIMONY ....................................................... 2070

D. HENRY COOK’S TESTIMONY ............................................................ 2071

E. DEFENSE EVIDENCE ......................................................................... 2073

III. ANALYSIS OF ERRORS AND OMISSIONS AT GIDEON’S FIRST TRIAL ........ 2076

A. MISTAKES AND OMISSIONS BY GIDEON ACTING AS HIS OWN

LAWYER ......................................................................................... 2076

B. ACTIONS JUDGE MCCRARY COULD HAVE TAKEN TO INSURE A FAIR

TRIAL ............................................................................................ 2077

IV. THE ROAD TO THE SUPREME COURT ................................................... 2079

A. THE PRE-SENTENCE REPORT ........................................................... 2079

B. POST-CONVICTION PROCEEDINGS .................................................... 2080

V. GIDEON’S SECOND TRIAL ..................................................................... 2081

A. W. FRED TURNER ........................................................................... 2083

B. PREPARATION FOR TRIAL ................................................................ 2084

C. HENRY COOK’S TESTIMONY ............................................................ 2087

D. THE IMPEACHMENT OF COOK ......................................................... 2089

E. J.D. HENDERSON AND PRESTON BRAY .............................................. 2093

 Dean Emeritus and Professor, Stetson University College of Law. The author was the

Florida Assistant Attorney General representing the State of Flor ida before the United States

Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright. I wish to thank Andrew Eells of the Office of Faculty

Support Services at Stetson for his help to me in producing this Essay. Also, I thank my

daughter, Lee Ann Gun of Ashland, Massachusetts, for preparing the diagram contained in the

Essay.

2060 IOWA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 99:2059

F. IRENE RHODES’S MISSING TESTIMONY ............................................. 2094

G. GIDEON TESTIFIES .......................................................................... 2096

H. THE ISSUE OF THE MISSING COKES .................................................. 2097

VI. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 2099

I. INTRODUCTION

This Essay is about the trials of Clarence Earl Gideon that took place

before and after the decision in Gideon v Wainwright.1 Gideon was convicted

of breaking and entering with intent to commit petit larceny in Bay County,

Florida. He sought review and won before the United States Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court returned his case to Florida where he was acquitted at a

second trial.2

Gideon had no counsel at his first trial, but he did have an attorney at

the second—Fred Turner, a local criminal defense lawyer and later Circuit

Judge. Turner and I met in Panama City, Florida, in 2000, and we formed a

friendship that lasted until his death in 2003.3 Turner knew that I planned

to write about Gideon and we carried on lengthy discussions on the subject.

Turner supplied much of the information that forms the basis for this Essay.

A. THE OFFENSE, ARREST, CHARGE, AND DENIAL OF COUNSEL

On June 3, 1961, at about 5:30 in the morning, a breaking and

entering took place at the Bay Harbor Poolroom, in the small community of

Bay Harbor, a few miles east of downtown Panama City, Florida. The

intruder had smashed a window in the back of the poolroom and used a

large garbage can to climb in through the now open window. Once inside,

that person drank a number of beers, and broke into the jukebox and the

1. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).

2. This Essay is about the trials. I have concentrated on the Supreme Court proceedings

in Bruce R. Jacob, Memories of and Reflections About Gideon v. Wainwright, 33 STETSON L. REV.

181 (2003).

3. We corresponded and phoned each other regularly. I personally received eighteen

letters from Mr. Turner. I also had copies of six letters he sent others in which he discussed the

Gideon case. In 2000, Mr. Turner took my wife, Ann, and me to the scene of the breaking and

entering of the Bay Harbor Poolroom and gave us a tour of the area. Mr. Turner and I served

together in two panel discussions regarding Gideon, one at the University of Tampa on April 19,

2001, and the other in Miami on March 18, 2003. We spent time together in Panama City, St.

Petersburg, Tampa, and Miami. Turner stayed overnight at the Stetson College of Law. All of

our times together were spent in discussing the case. In a letter to me dated November 18,

2002, he wrote: “Our lives are intertwined with this Missouri vagabond, whether we like it or

not, so, we are relics, so to speak, of what purports to be a legal watershed and are obligated to

repeat to differing audiences our roles in this notable case.” Letter from the Honorable W. Fred

Turner, Judge of the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit, State of Fla., to author (Nov. 18, 2002) (on

file with author). Correspondence ended when Turner passed away in late 2003.

2014] THE GIDEON TRIALS 2061

cigarette machine, taking an undetermined amount of cash, all in coins.

Some wine was also taken from the premises.

Police arrested Clarence Earl Gideon, who lived in a rooming house

across the street from the poolroom, later that morning at a bar in Panama

City. He had paid for a number of drinks with change, and had $25.28 with

him, all in change, when arrested.4 Prosecutors filed an information against

him, charging the offense of breaking and entering of “the Bay Harbor

Poolroom, property of Ira Strickland, Jr., lessee, with intent to commit a

misdemeanor within said building, to wit, petit larceny . . . .”5 He was

arraigned on July 31 without counsel and pled not guilty. The trial was set

for August 4.6

The three main participants in both of Gideon’s trials were Gideon,

Judge Robert McCrary, and William Harris, the Assistant State Attorney. The

next Subparts look more closely at each of these participants.

B. CLARENCE EARL GIDEON

Clarence Earl Gideon was born in Hannibal, Missouri, on August 30,

1910. His father died when he was three, and he was raised by his mother

and stepfather.7 He had an eighth grade education.8 At fourteen, he ran

away from home to California, but returned to Hannibal one year later.9

At fifteen, he broke into a country store and stole some clothing. Police

arrested Gideon the next day when the store owner saw him wearing the

stolen clothes.10 Gideon was convicted as a juvenile and sent to a

reformatory to serve a three-year sentence.11 He was paroled after one year.12

Gideon got a job in a shoe factory and married his first wife. They lived

together for a year.13 At eighteen, his adult criminal record began. In

November 1928, he received a ten-year sentence in the state penitentiary in

4. Transcript of Record at 22, 89, 91, State v. Gideon (Aug. 5, 1963) [hereinafter

Second Trial Transcript].

5. This is taken from the information in the Circuit Court file in the case. Circuit Court

File, Gideon v. Cochran (No. C-1371). At that time, in Florida, the dividing line between grand

larceny and petit larceny was $50. In Gideon’s case, the amount taken from the juke box and

cigarette machine was unknown, and that was probably why the charge was for “petit” rather

than grand larceny. The requisite amount to elevate a charge from petit larceny to grand

larceny was increased by the Legislature a couple of years later.

6. This information is taken from the record before the United States Supreme Court in

Gideon. Transcript of Record at 2, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) (No. 155)

[hereinafter Sup. Ct. Record]. The first trial proceedings, including the transcript of testimony,

can be found in this document.

7. ANTHONY LEWIS, GIDEON’S TRUMPET 65–66 (Vintage ed. 1966).

8. Id. at 66.

9. Id.

10. Id. at 67.

11. Id.

12. Id.

13. Id.