Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
Abstract
A low income person is more likely to be prosecuted and imprisoned post-Gideon than pre-Gideon. Poor people lose in American criminal justice not because they have ineffective lawyers but because they are selectively targeted by police, prosecutors, and law makers. The critique of rights suggests that rights are indeterminate and regressive. Gideon demonstrates this critique: it has not improved the situation of most poor people, and in some ways has worsened their plight. Gideon provides a degree of legitimacy for the status quo. Even full enforcement of Gideon would not significantly improve the loser status of low-income people in American criminal justice.
Publication Citation
122 Yale L.J. 2176-2204 (2013)
Scholarly Commons Citation
Butler, Paul D., "Poor People Lose: Gideon and the Critique of Rights" (2013). Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. 1249.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1249