Why does the right to counsel appear in both the U.S. Constitution and the Florida Constitution?
Inform the students that the individual liberties and protections secured by the Bill of Rights were not originally applicable to state governments, but were designed as a check on the power asserted by the federal government. For that reason, the Sixth Amendment did not originally apply to state criminal prosecutions, and was limited to prosecutions for federal crimes. Also, the Sixth Amendment initially did not guarantee appointed counsel, or counsel provided by the government for the poor, in federal prosecutions.
