Chapters 1 and 2 Summary and Analysis

Clarence Earl Gideon is a fifty-one-year-old white man from the South who believes that he was denied due process of the law because he was not assigned an attorney during his trial. Gideon, holding to the idea that the Constitution assured him of that right, files a petition with the United States Supreme Court. He mails his request from the Florida State Prison in Raiford, and it's received by assistant Supreme Court Clerk Michael Rodak, Jr. While the rules allow some leniency for petitions filed in this manner, Rodak does check to be certain the petitioners have followed the rules that are enforced. Gideon's does and successfully clears the first hurdle toward being heard by the Supreme Court. H.G. Cockran, director of the Florida Division of Corrections, was named a respondent in Gideon's case.

Gideon isn't a "professional...