A.
Lewis on Gideon (cont)
Turner says that Gideon came
to him with “a valise full of motion.” Among other things he
wanted to move for a change of venue, to Tallahassee. Turner pointed out
that he knew people in Panama City—as it turned out, he knew most
of the jurors—but none in Tallahassee. Gideon agreed to drop the
idea of moving the trial. Then Turner told him, “I’ll only represent
you if you stop trying to be the lawyer and let me handle the case.”
Gideon agreed.
People often ask me whether Gideon ever got in trouble with the law again
after his acquittal in the second trial. The answer is: only once. He
went to the Kentucky Derby, lost all his money, and was arrested for vagrancy.
When he was brought before a judge, he asked the judge to take a look
at something first. It was a copy of “Gideon’s Trumpet,”
which he had with him. The judge said he would read it overnight, and
in the meantime Gideon would stay in the lockup. The next day the judge
said he was pleased to have met the man who had changed the law of the
Constitution. “As I understand it,” the judge went on, “the
decision in your case only applies to felonies. This charge is a petty
misdemeanor. Perhaps the Supreme Court will expand its decision to require
counsel in this kind of case, too. I was going to just let you go. But
if you like, I’ll sentence you to six months, and you can appeal
on up.” Gideon said, “If it’s all the same to you, judge,
I’d rather go.”
In early 1972 I was reporting in London for the New York Times. One day
I got a letter from Abe Fortas, who as you know was appointed to represent
Gideon in the Supreme Court. In it was a funeral notice for Clarence Earl
Gideon. It was from Hannibal, Missouri, his birthplace. I telephoned the
funeral parlor to find out what happened. The owner told me that Gideon
had died in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; his body had been brought to Hannibal
by his mother. I got the mother’s telephone number. The funeral parlor
owner asked whether I knew that Hannibal was the birthplace of Mark Twain.
I did.
When I reached Gideon’s mother, she said, “You’re the man
who wrote that terrible book.” “What do you mean?” I asked.
“You said his stepfather was a bad man, and he was a good man.”
Well I hadn’t said that; Gideon had. His mother ended the conversation
by saying, “Clarence could have been most anything if he’d gone
to school as he ought to, and behaved himself.”
But he was something. That is why we are talking about him today. There
is a monument to him now in Hannibal, and tourists go to that as well
as to Mark Twain’s birthplace. The other day I had a letter from
the president of the Historical Society of Bay County, Florida. She told
me that they are putting up a marker for Clarence Earl Gideon.