After 21 of his clients received the death penalty, lawyer won't take any more capital cases
Houston lawyer Jerry Guerinot says he is tired of being pilloried over his work in capital cases.
After four decades of handling death-penalty trials, 71-year-old Guerinot tells the Associated Press he won’t be taking any more of those cases. And there is a reason why he wasn’t able to win acquittals for his capital clients, Guerinot says.
“My theory is if they are the sorriest of the worst or the very worst, I got ‘em,” he told AP.
Twenty-one of Guerinot’s clients have been sentenced to death, and 10 have been executed. Some death penalty opponents have criticized Guerinot, including Jim Marcus, who claims his appellate client received inadequate representation from Guerinot in terms of pretrial work and witness questioning. Marcus is co-director of the Capital Punishment Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law.
Marcus’ client was one of four of Guerinot’s clients convicted during a seven-month period in 1996. “It is unthinkable that a defense attorney would try four separate death penalty cases to verdict in the space of seven months,” Marcus told AP.
Guerinot told the wire service he wasn’t the lead lawyer on some of the cases, and extensive preparation went into the cases before trial.
Guerinot was top assistant to the lead lawyer in the capital case against Duane Buck, whose own defense expert testified he is statistically more likely to be dangerous in the future because he is black. That case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Guerinot said AP he was there to make sure his clients got “a fair shake.”
“And, by God,” Guerinot told AP, “There ain’t one of them that didn’t.”
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Defense Lawyer Holds Possible Record for Most Clients Sentenced to Death”
