Gideon’s Failed Solution for Retributivism’s Justification of Punishment

In 1963 to a poor petty criminal in Florida reached out to our nation’s highest court on appeal, claiming that he had been wrongly denied his right to legal counsel. Clarence Earl Gideon in the landmark decision Gideon v. Wainwright won his appeal, resulting in the extension of the right to counsel to all Americans. In theory the right of counsel should create a fairer court allowing for the punishment of those convicted under it to be justified. Unfortunately, fifty years after Gideon, procedural conditions in the extensions of adequate counsel render retributivism largely inapplicable to the current state of the US court system as it cannot justify punishment.

The Retributive Theory of Punishment is Kant’s theory to justify punishment in civil society. The Kantian emphasis of protecting an individual’s rights while still being able to punish is consolidated in the theory. Kant does this by noting that punishment can, “be imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted has committed a crime” (Kant 144). Kant emphasizes that after a person has been found guilty and punishable they are subject to the right of retaliation, where “the undeserved evil anyone commits on another, is to be perpetrated on himself” (Kant 145). For example, “whoever steals anything makes the property of all insecure; he therefore robs himself of all security in property” (Kant 145). By making himself insecure through his own actions the thief willingly under the right of retaliation can be punished through penal labor in order to make up for the security the thief has robbed the state of. Thus, “Retributive punishment serves a moral function for Kant by making the criminal live under the law he implicitly sets up in his criminal act” (F...

... middle of paper ...

...Gideon, in order for a defendant to prove inadequate representation they must show that the lawyer was not only incompetent, but that they were prejudiced by the incompetency (Cohen). The complaint of the defendant additionally must be viewed narrowly ensuring that harm done to the defendant cannot be taken into account (Cohen). The rules of Strickland have allowed for cases, “"where counsel allowed his client to wear the same sweatshirt and shoes in court that the perpetrator was alleged to have worn on the day of the crime, where counsel stated prior to trial that he was not prepared on the law or facts of the case, and where counsel appointed in a capital case could not name a single Supreme Court opinion on the death penalty" (Cohen). Strickland has effectively ensured little or no recourse for a person whose right of adequate counsel has not been provided.