Francisco Bello

Clarence Earl Gideon was charged with breaking into a pool hall. He could not afford a lawyer to defend him in court, and after a hasty trial, he was convicted. Had Gideon accepted his fate, he'd have been imprisoned for five years. But Gideon did challenge his conviction -all the way to the Supreme Court. The result was the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, which guarantees poor defendants the right to counsel in criminal cases.

Who actually bears the burden when we demand harsher punishment for a privileged white defendant?