In Gideon v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously extends to state court trials the rule it established for federal court trials nearly 30 years earlier in Johnson v. Zerbst: The Sixth and 14th Amendments guarantee indigent defendants the right to have an attorney appointed, at the government’s expense, if they are charged with a serious crime. In 1972, in Argersinger v. Hamlin, the Court will extend the Gideon rule to defendants charged with a misdemeanor and facing jail time.