Answer:
The ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright strengthened the rights of people accused of crimes by guaranteeing the assistance of a lawyer for all defendants.
Explanation:
Clarence Earl Gideon, when accused of having committed a crime, thought of claiming legal assistance because he lacked of legal knowledge, which was denied by the Florida courts, alleging that the laws of that State restricted that right to cases in those that death penalty could be imposed. In this way he had to represent himself and invoked, in an unsuccessful way, his innocence, being sentenced to five years in prison.
From the state penitentiary, and making use of the prison library, Mr. Gideon appealed to the Supreme Court arguing that his constitutional right to defense guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment had been undermined. The Supreme Court admitted his case and assigned him as a lawyer, for the oral hearing, to Abraham "Abe" Fortas, who would later be judge of the Court itself, between 1965 and 1969.
In the famous Gideon v. Case Wainwright, of March 18, 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that States were required, by mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment, to provide legal assistance in criminal matters to all persons, and not only to those who faced cases of capital punishment, who lacked resources to pay their defense. In this way, it overruled expressly what it had decided earlier in the case Betts v. Brady of 1942.
Following the re-trial, as a result of the Supreme Court ruling, Gideon was acquitted.
