''Gideon's Trumpet'' is a 1964 book by Anthony Lewis describing the story behind the 1963 landmark court case ''

Gideon v. Wainwright ''Gideon v. Wainwright'', 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable ...

'', in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that criminal defendants have the right to an attorney even if they cannot afford one. In 1965, the book won an Edgar Award from the

Mystery Writers of America Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday. It presents the Edgar Awa ...

for Best Fact Crime book. A made-for-TV movie, of the same name, based on the book was released in 1980, starring

Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics. Born and ra ...

Clarence Earl Gideon Clarence Earl Gideon (August 30, 1910 – January 18, 1972) was a poor drifter accused in a Florida state court of felony breaking and entering. While in prison, he appealed his case to the US Supreme Court, resulting in the landmark 1963 decisio ...

José Ferrer José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1912 – January 26, 1992) was a Puerto Rican actor and director of stage, film and television. He was one of the most celebrated and esteemed Hispanic American actors during his lifetime, w ...

Abe Fortas Abraham Fortas (June 19, 1910 – April 5, 1982) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1965 to 1969. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Fortas graduated from R ...

and John Houseman as Earl Warren (though Warren's name was never mentioned in the film; he was billed simply as "The Chief Justice"). Houseman also provided the offscreen closing narration at the end of the film. Lewis himself appeared in a small role as "The Reporter". The movie was a '' Hallmark Hall of Fame'' presentation produced by Worldvision, and aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

. The name is a play on words, using the defendant's last name and invoking the biblical story in which Gideon ordered his small force to attack a much larger enemy camp. Gideon's army carried trumpets and concealed torches in clay pots. When the call to attack came, the noise and light they made tricked their enemies into thinking that a much larger army was attacking them. Thus, Gideon won the battle with little actual fighting ( Judges 7:16-22).

References

* Anthony Lewis, ''Gideon's Trumpet''. New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 1964. (most of the book's material previously published in the New Yorker in 1964 in a different form) *

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

Catalog Card Numbe
64:11986

External links

Internet Movie Database
1964 non-fiction books American non-fiction books Law books 1980 television films 1980 films 1980 drama films American courtroom films Courtroom dramas American docudrama films Edgar Award-winning works Hallmark Hall of Fame episodes Peabody Award-winning broadcasts 1980s prison films 1980s legal films Random House books Hebrew Bible words and phrases American drama television films 1980s American films {{US-tv-drama-film-stub

See also

References

External links