When a man in Florida is convicted after being denied an attorney — because he cannot afford to hire one — he petitions the Supreme Court. The case Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) results in a ruling in which the Court asserts that the Fourteenth Amendment embraces the fundamental principles of liberty and justice that lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions. Writing for the majority, Justice Hugo Black reasons that the due process provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment mean that the states are not immune from the Bill of Rights.