More information to come on what the requirements will be for this unit.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Unit Two
This section will be focusing less on the characters, what we learn from them, and why this may be significant for our understanding of our legal system (implied or stated), and move more into that system as a process. Who are the players? What is their significance? How do the various texts and visual representations of this complicate our understanding of the roles and limitations of the law?
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Today in class when we were trying to find the Gideon’s Trumpet video, I actually was curious why the story of the Gideon v Wainwright case came known as “Gideon’s Trumpet.” After some research I learned that Gideon’s case had a book written about it by Anthony Lewis in 1964. He titled the book based on the biblical story about Gideon. It is supposedly a play on words because in the biblical story, “Gideon” orders a small army to attack a very large enemy camp. The army that Gideon led carried trumpets and torches covered by pots, so when it was time to attack the army appeared much bigger than they actually were. The story is from Judges 7:16-22. The connection with the case has to do with the fact that Gideon won his case without much fighting because he had a counsel that did it for him.
ReplyDeleteI am always interested in the "characters" of any story. I researched Gideon himself and found some interesting facts. Gideon ran away from home as a teenager and built up a petty crime profile before the age of 16. At 18 he was arrested for robbery, burglary and larceny. I found it interesting that he was actually sent to the same prison as Dick and Perry in Leavenworth Kansas. They might have even been there at the same time. Gideon was married three times but his fourth marriage lasted and they had six kids together until they got taken away by welfare authorities. Gideon moved to Panama City where he was arrested for the burglary that made him famous. He was out of jail for over ten years before his trial in 1961. He married a fifth time and remained broke until his death in Ft. Lauderdale, FL in 1972 at the age of 62.
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