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Gideon V Wainwright Summary

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The story begins when a nun, Sister Helen Prejean, takes interest in a community outreach program. She begins to write letters to inmates at a nearby prison. Through this program, Sister Helen meets a death row inmate named Matthew Poncelet. Poncelet was placed on death row for the rape and murder of two teenagers. Eventually, Sister Helen visits Poncelet in prison and the two begin a long road to gain a friendship like no other. Sister Helen helps Matthew appeal to higher courts and she tries to help this inmate leave death row. Through limited interactions, Sister Helen becomes the religious counselor for Matthew. The two spend the last weeks of Matthew’s life together. While spending this crucial amount of time together, Sister Helen …show more content…
The fact that poor men like Matthew had a lawyer, despite his inability to pay is because of Gideon v. Wainwright (1963). This case overturned the previous standing of “only during special circumstances,” that was established in Betts v. Brady (1942). In Gideon v. Wainwright, the court had to decide if the sixth amendment gave the right to council in all cases or not. The court’s philosophy at the time leaned more toward activism. This means that the court used its power to protect the rights of the minority, in this decision they applied that power to the poor. The decision stated that every individual has a right to representation. Matthew’s case took place in the 1980’s, and because of the time he had the right to representation. The problem with everyone getting an attorney is that he still did not have the best possible representation… Even though it is a much better situation to have an attorney during the trial process, if one does not have good representation they may still be found guilty. Lawyers may be assigned to criminal cases when they are ill equipped and not properly trained to tri a case of such matters. Matthew did not have great representation and because of this he was found guilty in 5

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