Supreme Court confronts case of death row inmate whose lawyers quit his case

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

Cory R. Maples was not surprised the day he heard that a court had rejected his challenge to his death sentence. “Down here, they’re pretty serious about it,” he said in a phone call from Alabama’s death row.

But the other news left him in “a state of shock”: the two lawyers from the prestigious New York law firm who had agreed to represent him had quit, quite some time before, without so much as a goodbye.

A clerk attempted to notify the lawyers of the court’s action, but the letters were returned unopened; Maples discovered that he had missed the deadline for appealing to the next level.

“I hate to use the word ‘abandonment,’ but that’s the closest I can get to it,” Maples said. “I’m supposed to have these two lawyers from this great firm that have my life in their hands, and now I find out that they’re not even on the case anymore.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-confronts-case-of-death-row-inmate-whose-lawyers-quit-his-case/2011/09/26/gIQAncoS8K_singlePage.html

[tblue]

1. Holy cow!!!

“the petitioner bears the risk . . . for all attorney errors made in the course of representation.”

I could throw up. People are so nonchalant about other people's lives. How could they just walk away like that? And since when is that right?

[Poll_Blind]

2. That was a really interesting article. What a strange situation.

I don't think his guilt is in question but the handling of his appeal surely is.

PB

[elleng]

4. Sure is.

And then there's Alabama's death penalty process, which does NOT require unanimous decision.

[elleng]

3. Awful. He does have counsel now.

'Groups taking Maples’s side said it would do no harm to allow a federal court to hear his claim of ineffective counsel; left unsaid is that such claims are usually unsuccessful.

And two groups — the bipartisan Constitution Project and the libertarian Cato Institute — filed a brief saying that such a decision will only enhance the public’s view of judicial fairness.

“This case measures our courts’ basic commitment to correct what a reasonable observer would readily perceive as a miscarriage of justice,” the brief said.'

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. So a man pleads guilty to 2 murders and SCOTUS agrees to hear his case

because he wasn't notified in a timely manner that his attorneys returned the letter of denial unopened, yet Troy Davis goes to his death without a single appeal being heard.

What a country.