Geoffrey Squier Silver Former Attorney & Counselor at Law

02/17/2026

In 1961, a 51-year-old drifter named Clarence Earl Gideon was living in Panama City, surviving on odd jobs and whatever work he could find. He had left school after eighth grade. He moved often. He had brushes with the law. He was not influential or well connected. If anything, he was invisible.

On June 3, 1961, a local pool hall was broken into. Someone forced open a cigarette machine and jukebox, taking beer, wine, and about sixty-five dollars. It was minor—but still a felony under Florida law. A witness placed Gideon at the scene earlier that day. That was enough. He was arrested and charged.

In August, Gideon stood alone in court. He had no lawyer and no money. He asked the judge to appoint one.

The judge refused.

Under Florida law at the time, attorneys were appointed only in capital cases—where the death penalty was possible. Gideon’s charge didn’t qualify.

He objected politely, saying he believed the Constitution guaranteed him counsel. The judge followed existing precedent. So Gideon defended himself.

He questioned witnesses. Tried to object. Spoke directly to jurors. But he didn’t know the rules of evidence or courtroom strategy. He was facing trained prosecutors with none of the training.

He was convicted and sentenced to five years.

For most people, that would have been the end.

But Gideon believed something fundamental was wrong.

From prison, he began studying law books. He learned that prisoners could petition the Supreme Court of the United States directly if constitutional rights had been violated.

On January 8, 1962, using pencil and prison stationery, he wrote a five-page petition. The handwriting was neat but unpolished. The argument was simple:

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to counsel.

He was denied a lawyer because he was poor.

That violated the Constitution.

The Court receives thousands of petitions each year. Most are denied.

But the justices saw something bigger.

In 1942, in Betts v. Brady, the Court had ruled that states did not always have to provide attorneys to indigent defendants. Many justices had grown uneasy with that decision.

Gideon’s case offered a chance to revisit it.

The Court agreed to hear it. They appointed respected attorney Abe Fortas to argue on Gideon’s behalf.

The man who couldn’t afford a lawyer now had one of the nation’s best arguing before the highest court.

On January 15, 1963, Fortas argued that counsel is essential to a fair trial. Without a lawyer, a defendant—especially in a felony case—stands little chance.

The question wasn’t convenience.

It was justice.

On March 18, 1963, the Court delivered its decision in Gideon v. Wainwright.

Unanimous. 9–0.

Justice Hugo Black wrote that in America, a person too poor to hire a lawyer cannot receive a fair trial unless counsel is provided.

The Court overturned Betts v. Brady. States were now required to provide attorneys to defendants who could not afford them in criminal cases.

Gideon received a new trial.

This time, he had a court-appointed attorney, Fred Turner. Turner investigated thoroughly and challenged the prosecution’s case, which proved weaker than first presented.

On August 5, 1963, after less than an hour of deliberation, the jury acquitted him.

Same man.

Same charge.

Nearly the same evidence.

The difference was a lawyer.

The ruling reshaped American justice. States established public defender systems. Thousands of convictions were reconsidered. The principle became clear:

Justice cannot depend on wealth.

Gideon did not become wealthy or famous. He lived modestly and died in 1972 at age 61.

But his persistence altered constitutional law forever.

Today, when someone charged with a serious crime cannot afford an attorney, the court must appoint one.

That right feels obvious now.

It became obvious because a man in a prison cell, with no formal legal training and nothing but a pencil, insisted that the Constitution applied to him too.

He wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t powerful.

But he believed fairness should not be reserved for those who could pay.

And because he believed that, equal justice under law moved a little closer to reality for everyone.



Credit goes goes to the respective owner

12/09/2025

Fire On The Mountain. Pele awakes pumping lava in three fountains 1,200 feet high in eruption number 38.

A spectacular eruption at Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. This 12-hour event took place in the Halema‘uma‘u crater at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. Eruption Event #38 included 3 lava fountains and destroyed the live camera volcanologists use to monitor it. My timing was impeccable, and I was able to photograph the eruptions at Kilauea, that began Saturday morning and sent lava shooting at least 1,000 feet into the air, according to the USGS. Several of the eruptions that occurred since the series began in December 2024 have produced high fountains -- some up to 1,500 feet, according to the USGS.

Video in comments.

02/16/2025

02/11/2025

A claimed author Tom Robbins has left this earthly plane. He left behind many pearls of wisdom.
“I’m descended from a long line of preachers and policemen,” he told a magazine in 2000. “Now, it’s common knowledge that cops are congenital liars, and evangelists spend their lives telling fantastic tales in such a way as to convince otherwise rational people that they’re factual. So, I guess I come by my narrative inclinations naturally.”

01/29/2025

WHAT TO DO AT AN ICE CHECKPOINT, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WHITE and/or FEEL THE NEED TO JAM UP THE WORKS.

Here's the deal:
🔘 Border Patrol can verify citizenship within 100 miles of a border or "external boundary." This includes coastlines, so NYC, Philadelphia, and all of NJ are within the 100-mile zone.
🔘 Border patrol can only ask brief questions about citizenship, and they cannot hold you for an extended time without cause.
🔘 You always have the right to remain silent. You do not need to answer their questions.
🔘 WITH THAT SAID, IF YOU ARE A BORN CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES AND ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WHITE, YOU NEED TO SPEAK THE F**K UP.
🔘 The most important acts of resistance are the small ones. Make it difficult and uncomfortable for ICE agents to do their jobs. They are counting on citizens to turn a blind eye and allow them to deport undocumented citizens without challenge. Disabuse of that notion.
🔘 If you are on a train, bus, or anything else and ICE or CBP boards, you need to stand up and loudly let everyone know that they have the right to remain silent or only answer questions in the presence of an attorney, no matter their citizenship or immigration status. There have been numerous reports that confronting the agents in this way has caused them to leave without verifying citizenship. THIS CAN SAVE LIVES. 🙌
🔘 If you see anyone being held up by immigration, loudly ask if they are being detained and if they are free to go.
🔘 Immigration officers cannot detain anyone without reasonable suspicion, an agent must have specific facts about you that make it reasonable to believe you are committing or committed, a violation of immigration law or federal law. If an agent detains you, you can ask for their basis for reasonable suspicion, and they should tell you.
🔘 Always say no to a search and let everyone know that they can and should refuse consent to a search.
🔘 They cannot search or arrest anyone without facts about that make it probable that they are committing, or committed, a violation of immigration law or federal law.
🔘 Silence alone meets neither of these standards. Nor does race or ethnicity alone suffice for either probable cause or reasonable suspicion
🔘 white citizens, you have a level of privilege which protects us from retaliation from ICE for being "rude" and making a scene, which makes it our DUTY to speak up and make sure people without the same privilege know their rights. GET LOUD. YELL. YELL IN SPANISH IF YOU KNOW IT. LET PEOPLE KNOW THEY DON'T HAVE TO SAY S**T. MAKE ICE UNCOMFORTABLE. THROW SAND IN THE GEARS OF WHITE SUPREMACY.
⭐️ Bonus info- ⭐️
🔘It is perfectly legal to record immigration agents as long as you are not on government property or at a port of entry. If your train/bus gets boarded, pull your phone out and start videotaping immediately.
🔘 If you are detained or see someone getting detained, get the agent's name, number, and any other identifying information. Get it on video if possible.
🔘 Contact the ACLU or your local Immigrant/Migrant support orgs if you see someone's rights being violated.

(this has been copy and pasted -- please do the same)

10/25/2024

The struggle over whether the U.S. government should work for everyone or for the very wealthy and corporations was on display today. Cable and internet providers and home security companies sued to stop the newly finalized Federal Trade Commission “click-to-cancel” rule that says it must be as easy to cancel a service as it is to sign up for it.

Also today, the Department of Transportation reached a record settlement of $50 million with American Airlines, whose damage to wheelchairs and dangerous physical assistance to disabled passengers has broken laws. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both legs in combat in the Iraq War, praised the fine and commented: “When an airline damages or breaks someone’s wheelchair, it’s like breaking their legs.”

"The era of tolerating poor treatment of airline passengers with disabilities is over," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. "With this penalty, we are setting a new standard of accountability for airlines that violate the civil rights of passengers with disabilities. By setting penalties at levels beyond the mere cost of doing business for airlines, we're aiming to change how the industry behaves and prevent these kinds of abuses from happening in the first place.”

A reader called to my attention that the recent Federal Election Commission filings showed one significant difference in the expenditures of the two presidential campaigns. The Harris campaign spent $34,550.02 on sign language interpreting services. The Trump campaign spent $0.00.

These details of governance are fragments of a larger picture of how we see our country. Are we all created equal and entitled to be treated equally before the law? Or are some people better than others?

CNN was supposed to host another presidential debate tonight, but while Vice President Kamala Harris accepted, Trump declined to attend. In place of a debate, CNN invited each candidate to hold a town hall. Harris accepted; Trump declined.

In her discussion with host Anderson Cooper, Harris focused on the reiteration yesterday by Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, retired U.S. Marine Corps general John Kelly, that Trump had spoken admiringly of Adolf Hi**er and expressed a desire to have generals like Hi**er’s. In an interview with the New York Times, Kelly said Trump “met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.”

The ideology of fascism is associated with Italian journalist and politician Benito Mussolini, who articulated a new political ideology in the 1920s. Mussolini had been a socialist as a young man and had grown frustrated at how hard it was to organize people. No matter what socialists tried, they seemed unable to convince their neighbors that they must rise up and take over the country’s means of production. The efficiency of World War I inspired Mussolini to give up on socialism and develop a new political theory.

Mussolini rejected the equality that defined democracy and came to believe that some men were better than others. Those few must lead, taking a nation forward by directing the actions of the rest. They must organize the people as they had during wartime, ruthlessly suppressing all opposition and directing the economy so that business and politicians worked together. Logically, that select group of leaders would elevate a single man, who would become an all-powerful dictator. To weld their followers into an efficient machine, they demonized opponents into an “other” that their followers could hate.

This hierarchical system of government was called “fascism” after the bundle of rods tied around an axe that was the ancient Roman symbol of authority and power. Italy adopted it, and Mussolini’s ideas inspired others, notably Germany’s Adolf Hi**er. These leaders believed that their new system would reclaim a glorious past with the ideology of the future, welding pure men into a military and social machine that moved all as one, while pure women supported society as mothers. They set out to eliminate those who didn’t fit their model and to destroy the messy, inefficient democracy that stood in their way.

But while today we associate fascism with this European movement, its foundational principle—that some men are better than others and have the right and even the duty to rule over the majority—runs parallel to that same strand in United States history. Indeed, N**i lawyers and judges turned to America’s Jim Crow laws for inspiration, and Hi**er looked to America’s Indigenous reservations as a way to rid a country of “unwanted” people.

For retired Marine general John Kelly to have spoken out against Trump before the 2024 election was a huge deal. As Secretary Buttigieg put it: “It’s one thing for some leftist group to call you a fascist. Quite another when it’s a fellow Republican. And absolutely astonishing when it’s your own chief of staff.” But Kelly was not alone. Former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told veteran journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is “fascist to the core.”

In tonight’s CNN town hall, Vice President Harris told Cooper that she agreed that Trump is a fascist. She noted that when a four-star Marine general comes out two weeks before an election to warn Americans that one of the candidates is a fascist, we should see this as “a 911 call to the American people.”

Trump is “increasingly unstable,” Harris said, “and unfit to serve…. [T]he people who know Donald Trump best, the people who worked with him in the White House, in the Situation Room, in the Oval Office, all Republicans by the way, who served in his administration, his former chief of staff, his national security advisor, former secretaries of defense, and his vice president have all called him unfit and dangerous. They have said explicitly he has contempt for the Constitution of the United States. They have said he should never again serve as President of the United States,” she said.

When Trump talks about “the enemy within,” Harris said, “ [h]e's talking about the American people. He's talking about journalists, judges, nonpartisan election officials…. And he's going to sit there unstable, unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution. Creating an enemies list.” In contrast, she said, she would have a “to-do list” to work on the things that matter to the American people.

When Trump responded to Kelly’s claims, he appeared to confuse Kelly, who was retired when Trump chose him to serve as White House chief of staff, and Mark Milley, the active-duty chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump referred to four-star general Kelly, whose son died in Afghanistan, as “tough and dumb,” a “LOWLIFE, and a bad General,” but then went on to talk of him as active duty and to say he stopped seeking his advice in the White House.

Forced to comment on Kelly’s comment about Trump’s embracing fascism, Republican leaders are either ducking the question or acting as if it is not a big deal. On CNN this morning, New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu said the news that Trump has praised Hi**er will not affect Sununu’s support. “If we can get a Republican mindset out of Washington,” he said, “we need that culture change.”

At a rally tonight in Macon, Georgia, Trump agreed with the audience as it chanted: “Lock him up.” “You should lock them up,” Trump said. “Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary. Lock ‘em up.”

Tonight, Shawn Reilly, the mayor of Waukesha, Wisconsin—a key Republican stronghold—announced he’s voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

—

Notes:

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/telecom-group-sues-block-ftcs-click-cancel-rule-2024-10-23/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-airlines-50-million-fine-settlement-passengers-with-disabilities/

https://www.fec.gov/data/candidates/president/presidential-map/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/us/politics/john-kelly-trump-fitness-character.html

Robert J. Miller, “N**i Germany's Race Laws, the United States, and American Indians,” St. Johns Law Review 94, No. 3 (2020): 756.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-10-23/the-high-profile-military-leaders-who-have-come-out-against-donald-trump

https://www.fox6now.com/news/waukesha-mayor-endorses-kamala-harris

X:

SenDuckworth/status/1849230999265096073

KamalaHQ/status/1849277991219507297

BlackKnight10k/status/1849269481832374750

atrupar/status/1849123165194117432

ruthbenghiat/status/1849152446582407619

atrupar/status/1849256415484850432

atrupar/status/1849256882935931110

atrupar/status/1849273223638065658

kaitlancollins/status/1849217912877277470

PeteButtigieg/status/1849246285326332319

~ Heather Cox Richardson

10/20/2024

My old neighborhood. Part of the Lewis & Clark exposition.

“World’s Largest Log Cabin”. Portland, Oregon, 1938. Built In 1905, Burned Down In 1964.

09/27/2024

12/19/2023

A weekly email taking aim at the relentless absurdity of the 24-hour news cycle.

In northern Gaza, Israeli air strikes killed more than 90 Palestinians at the Jabalia refugee camp.1 Snipers killed a Gazan mother and daughter at a Catholic church, an act that Pope Francis denounced as “terrorism,” and Israeli forces shot and killed three shirtless Israeli men waving a white flag who had been taken hostage by Hamas.2 3 4 Additional white flags discovered near the site of the shooting included messages in Hebrew, likely written with leftover food, that translated to “SOS” and “Help, 3 hostages.”5 6 “Lessons have been learned,” an Israeli military spokesman said of the killings.7 In southern Gaza, an Al Jazeera cameraman was killed by a drone strike on a school, and a 13-year-old girl who had lost her parents, two siblings, and her leg in an earlier strike was killed by an artillery shell at a hospital.8 9 Gaza entered its fifth communications blackout since the war began, the World Health Organization described the conditions at Al-Shifa Hospital as a “bloodbath,” and the U.N. General Assembly voted 153 to 10 in favor of demanding a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, with Israel and the United States among the countries that opposed the resolution.10 11 12

The House passed an $886 billion defense bill, which set a new record for military spending and included measures that the House Armed Services Committee said would “end wokeness in the military,” and also approved an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.13 14 Hunter Biden defied a House subpoena to testify at a closed-door deposition as part of the inquiry, saying he would speak publicly or not at all; the Oversight Committee’s chair, James Comer, and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan vowed to begin proceedings to hold the president’s son in contempt of Congress.15 Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who went on to serve as a lawyer for Donald Trump, was ordered to pay $148 million to two Georgia election workers who brought a defamation suit against him following his claims that they interfered with the 2020 election, and a Senate staffer was fired after a video circulated online of him having s*x at the Capitol in the congressional hearing room where the 9/11 Commission hearings took place.16 17 In its final day in session before the winter break, the House passed a bill to bring whole milk back to school cafeterias, which Representative Lloyd K. Smucker of Pennsylvania called “utterly fantastic.”18

NASA revealed that two tomatoes had been found aboard the International Space Station, rather than the single tomato the agency had previously reported missing.19 A bronze top hat went missing from a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Louisville, Kentucky, a marble slab that had been stolen from the ruins of Pompeii was found on display in a Belgian home, and two men on trial for robbing a Kohl’s store in Parker, Colorado asked for a lesser charge because the items they stole were on sale.20 21 22 A copy of Beowulf was returned to a Pennsylvania library after 54 years, and a Nancy Drew novel was returned to a Wisconsin library after 20 years; as both libraries had gone fine-free in the intervening decades, no charges were incurred.23 24 A robot dog named Hound set a world record for a 100-meter sprint, a chihuahua named Bean raced across four lanes of traffic on the Staten Island Expressway before being caught with the help of a marathon runner, and commutes on Amtrak, PATH, and NJTransit were delayed for nearly an hour when a large, horned bull ran onto the tracks at Newark Penn Station.25 26 27 “We’re bullish on keeping you moving,” said a spokesperson for the PATH train, “but this situation was bull.”28 —Rachel Anne Cantor

READ THE WEB VERSION AT HARPERS.ORG