This year on Law Day we celebrate the principle of equality under the law with the Law Day theme of "Realizing the Dream: Equality for All." Equality and equal justice are bedrock values of the American legal system, and they are essential to the protection of our Constitutionally-guaranteed liberties. Reflections on equality are especially fitting this year, the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s world-changing "I Have a Dream" speech. These transforming words of two great American heros continue to resonate today as we strive to protect the rights of all people in this country.
It is also the 50th anniversary of another milestone in the history of equal justice in the United States. On March 18, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Gideon v. Wainright that criminal defendants in state or federal court have a right to a lawyer to represent them, regardless of their ability to pay. The court wrote:
From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 344 (1963) (emphasis added).
