The Yale Law Journal

Paul D. Butler

Essay

Poor People Lose: Gideon and the Critique of Rights

Paul D. Butler


122 Yale L.J. 2176 (2013).

A low income person is more likely to be prosecuted and imprisoned post-Gideon than pre-Gideon. Poor people lose in American criminal justice not because they have ineffective lawyers but because they are selectively targeted by police, prosecutors, and law makers. The crit…