"If
an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon
had not sat down in his prison cell . . . to write a letter
to the Supreme Court . . . the vast machinery of American
law would have gone on functioning undisturbed. But Gideon
did write that letter, the Court did look into his case
. . . and the whole course of American legal history has
been changed."
—Robert
F. Kennedy
