A little more than 50 years ago, on March 18, 1963, a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that the right to counsel is absolutely fundamental for any system of criminal justice to be fair. In Gideon v. Wainwright, the Court explained that lawyers in a criminal trial are "necessities, not luxuries":
"Governments, both state and federal, quite properly spend vast sums of money to establish machinery to try defendants accused of crime. Lawyers to prosecute are everywhere deemed essential to protect the public’s interest in an orderly society. Similarly, there are few defendants charged with crime, few indeed, who fail to hire the best lawyers they can get to prepare and present their defenses. That government hires lawyers to prosecute and defendants who have the money hire lawyers to defend are the strongest indications of the widespread belief that lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries."
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