On the day Bruce Jacob came to the U.S. Supreme Court to argue one of the nation’s most significant cases, there was just one person in the public seating area: his wife.
Ann Jacob watched her 27-year-old husband stand before the high court for the first time to argue for the state of Florida in the landmark Gideon v. Wainwright case in 1963. The young lawyer faced the imposing Abe Fortas, who later became a Supreme Court justice.
Jacob recalls this moment and how it forever changed his life and career, in his new book, The Gideon Case: Inside the Supreme Court’s Historic Right to Counsel Decision. This March marked the 63th anniversary of the court’s decision.
Jacob was in the criminal appeals section of the Florida attorney general’s office when his boss assigned him the case. While criminal defendants in Florida were entitled to legal counsel, the state only provided free representation in capital cases or under special circumstances.
Clarence Earl Gideon, a middle-aged drifter with a minor criminal record, was convicted of breaking into a pool hall and stealing coins. He had asked the trial judge to appoint a lawyer to him but was denied. Gideon filed a habeas corpus petition with the Florida Supreme Court, arguing that his constitutional right to counsel was violated. His petition was denied, which brought him to the U.S. Supreme Court.
To prepare, Jacob pored through law books and read dozens of cases. He read all the state constitutions, statutes, court rules and caselaw he could find regarding the right to counsel. He had to take extensive notes: There were no photocopy machines available to him back then. He had so much research to do that librarians loaned him keys to libraries at the Polk County Courthouse and the Florida Supreme Court building so he could have access on nights and weekends.
As he dove into the case, Jacob tried to enlist the support of other state attorneys general, only to find that those who responded supported Gideon’s position. Jacob says he knew all along he was likely to lose. But he still sought to make a case to show the country what was at stake.
Jacob and his colleagues at the attorney general’s office found that the caselaw supported Gideon’s position. “We realized that the court was moving toward an absolute right to counsel,” Jacob says in an interview from his home in Florida where he is a dean emeritus and professor emeritus at Stetson University College of Law.
“We knew it would be a monumental ruling by the court,” he says. They were concerned that a favorable ruling could mean “there’d be hundreds, maybe thousands of inmates released.”
As his court date drew near, Jacob practiced his arguments in front of his wife and ran ideas by his colleagues. In those days, Jacob recalls, lawyers did not rehearse arguments in front of peers or mock juries.
In anticipation of his appearance before the high court, Jacob called the clerk to ask what he should wear. “I had no idea what they wore at the Supreme Court. I knew there were some who dressed in in tails. So I was really worried about it,” he says. “And he said just a dark suit would be fine.”
So Jacob wore a dark blue suit his parents bought for him to wear on his first day of law school. He selected a pair of black dress shoes that his grandfather gave him for his high school graduation. The shoes belonged to his grandfather, who planned to wear them at the ceremony before he saw that Jacob did not have appropriate shoes.
“The morning that I argued, my wife asked me if I was nervous. I said it was like playing the violin. I used to play violin recitals, and I got very nervous until I start to play,” Jacob recalls of that day, Jan. 15, 1963. “It was like that in the argument, except that I was more nervous than usual because it was the Supreme Court.”
Among the few people in court was Anthony Lewis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times who was covering the case and would later write about it in his book Gideon’s Trumpet. Lewis and Jacob became well acquainted. When the court issued its ruling two months later on March 18, Lewis telephoned Jacob to let him know there was a unanimous decision, which he read over the phone.
“I had been expecting that the court would rule on behalf of Gideon,” Jacob wrote. “I was disappointed that there wasn’t at least one dissent, but the news was not unexpected.”
While Jacob had expected to lose, the ruling led him in a direction he had not expected.
After the ruling, the Florida Legislature created a state public defender system. “I immediately got a copy of the of the law, and there was a section that said that any lawyer in good standing can volunteer to be a public defender,” Bruce says. “And I thought, ‘Gee, I'd like to do that. I like to be in court to try cases. I think I was the first lawyer in Florida to sign up.”
Jacob found the work to be immensely satisfying—as well as eye-opening. He found that the courts were backed up with cases, mostly involving poor Black defendants with little hope of acquittal. “I just negotiated with the prosecutor for the lowest possible sentence,” Jacob says. “And I think we did get some fairly good deals out of that.”
In the years since the Gideon case, Jacob taught at Emory, Ohio State, Mercer and Stetson universities and served as Stetson’s law dean for 13 years. In 1965, he got a grant from the newly created National Defender Project to create the Legal Assistance for Inmates Program at Emory.
While studying for his doctorate at Harvard Law School, Jacob helped start the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project. He supervised law students representing indigent clients.
In his book, Jacob raises a question he was often asked: After being on the prosecution side of one of American history's biggest cases, why did he spend 55 years representing poor criminal defendants for free?
“The answer is simple,” he wrote. “After Gideon was decided, it was the law of the land, and I believed that all lawyers should do their part in fulfilling the ideals of that decision. This was a responsibility required of each of us lawyers as part of the privilege of practicing law.”
“I loved being a public defender. That was the most fun of any job I've ever had—working for a year at legal services at Harvard Law School supervising law students and handling cases. I just loved doing that.”
Over the years, Jacob has observed that despite the creation of public defender systems across the country, the Gideon decision still falls short of its promise to improve the legal system and guarantee justice.
“Well, we’re definitely not fulfilling the promise of Gideon. I was on a study commission committee in Washington, D.C. We did research and found that in many places they were just ignoring Gideon,” Jacob says. “It’s just not that. Public defenders are not being paid well or are handling enormous caseloads and can’t really devote much time to each case. So the ideals of the Gideon case certainly are not being fulfilled."
Jacob, who kept extensive notes during his time on the case, says he had long wanted to write a book about his experience, but life as a father, husband and lawyer kept him busy for decades. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I had nothing to do. I was sitting here at home doing nothing. And I said, ‘What the hell? Why don't I go ahead and try to write the book?’” he says. “So that's what got me started. It’s been about five years. I started in 2020. And it's been a long time in coming.”
Jacob does admit he was a bit peeved when he read Anthony Lewis’ book, which he thought was more sympathetic to Gideon. “It was the all-powerful state and poor little Gideon at the Supreme Court,” Jacob says. “The opposite was true. Gideon had all the power and the best law firm.”
The book was adapted for a TV movie in 1980 starring Henry Fonda as Gideon. Jacob was played by Nicholas Pryor. Jacob said the movie did nothing to improve his image.
He laughs about it now, and says he and Lewis remained friends until his death in 2013. “I started off really being mad about the book, but we were in various conferences together and talked about the Gideon case,” Jacob says. “And I talked with him a lot on the phone, and we wrote back and forth. So when he died, by that time, we had really become pretty, pretty good friends."
