Reinterpreting the 6 th Amendment Right to Counsel

AMBrown/
Courts and Judicial Processes
/Assignment
Courts and Judicial Processes
–
CJ
394
ASSIGNMENT

Reinterpreting the 6
th
Amendment Right to Counsel
Page Minimum:
3
pages
1)
PBS Home Video: Scottsboro, An American Tragedy, an episode of American
Experience (2001).
2)
CBS News: Gideon’s Trumpet: T
he Poor Man and the Law
–
1964, Films for the
Humanities & Sciences.
3)
Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932).
4)
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed. 2d 799 (1963).
Using the above
sources
write a response paper to th
e following
statement provided at the end of
the Atlantic Article: How Americans Lost the Right to Counsel, 50 Years After
‘
Gideon
’
, by
Andrew Cohen.
The Right to Counsel as set forth under the 6
th
Amendment to the United
States Constitution, and applied to the states through the 14
th
Amendment to
the United States Constitution
,
benefits both American society as a whole and
the crimin
al justice field as a profession.
Provide at least one paragraph
on the following topics
:
1.
A
nalyzing the
factual
similarities and differences between the two cases
.
2.
Discussing
the political
pressures that impacted the U.S. Supreme Court
’
s
d
etermination of each case
.
3.
Discussing
the
social
pressures that impacted the U.S. Supreme Court
’s
d
etermination of each case
.
4.
Discussing
the
economic
pressures that impacted the U.S. Supreme Court
’s
d
etermination of each case
.
5.
D
iscussing
the
i
mpact of outside influences upon
subsequently
appointed counsel.
6.
C
ompar
ing
and contrast
ing
the
legal
issues between the two cases.
7.
Discuss
ing wha
t the quote means.
8.
Discussing if the quote
implies
a goal to aspire to, or actually applies to
current
legal procedures.
AMBrown/
Courts and Judicial Processes
/Assignment
Direct cites should be limited to no more than one
or two
sentence from each source. The
paper should
not be a cobbled together stream of direct citations, as the goal of a response
paper is to illustrate the student’s ability to think, analyze, and present well
–
reasoned
positions.
_____
Correct and complete citations
(avoids use of non
–
academic sources such as Wikipedia
;
may use parenthetical citations at the end of a sentence, such as: In the A&E episode of
Investigative Reports entitled Death Row Women . . . (Death Row Women, 2
004).
)
No
more than a few sentences of this paper should be direct quotes. Indirect quotes must be
cited.
_____ Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling
.
Academic papers do not require personal pronouns
(you, me, I, our) or weak phrases like “in the video we s
aw in class.” Instead, organize
your sentence to read: In the A&E episode of Investigative Reports
entitled Death Row
Women . .
.
Do not write
“
like we heard in class
”
, or
“
like it says in the book.
”
Assume
the reader is reading your paper as a first source.
_____ Clear organization of thoughts (not a collection of cobbled together quotes from other
sources)
_____ Paper clearly w
ritten to respond to this topic and not recycled from another class
_____ single spaced, no unnecessary spaces between paragraphs, paragraphs indented
_____ Page numbers
_____ Appropriate length of paper (meets any set page minimum w/out unnecessary spacin
g)
_____ One inch margins
_____ 8 or 9point type
_____ Turned in on date due
through safe assignment