Right to counsel in Texas preceded Gideon by a century

Next Monday, March 18, at the Texas capitol there will be an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, which enshrined the right to legal counsel as a fundamental constitutional right, and on Sunday the New York Times had a story titled, "The Right to Counsel: Badly Battered at 50."

Notably, though, this may be the 50th anniversary of Gideon but not of the "right to counsel," at least in Texas. According to a newly published history (p. 65) Grits is presently reading, the Texas Supreme Court in Calvin v. State (1860) ruled that "the state had a duty to provide counsel for blacks who could not afford their own - a progressive notion that would not be enshrined in federal jurisprudence until more than a century later."

Who'da thought?