Monday marks the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, a landmark case in U.S. Supreme Court history, in which the court unanimously declared that indigent criminal defendants have a constitutional right to a court-appointed lawyer. Daniel Medwed, a professor of law and expert on wrongful convictions, hailed the decision for acknowledging the rights of defendants, but also noted that overworked public defenders and a woefully underfunded public defense system have called into question whether fair-trial rights are more aspirational than operational. We asked Medwed to explain how this historic decision has affected the criminal court system over the last five decades.
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