Judge: Pro se lawyer guilty of soliciting murder would win if he could sue himself for malpractice
A suburban Chicago judge pulled no punches on Friday when a former bankruptcy attorney convicted of murder solicitation after representing himself at a Will County bench trial sought to represent himself on appeal.
Apologizing in advance of his frank assessment, Judge Daniel Rozak told Robert Gold-Smith he was not only ineffective but inept as a criminal defense lawyer, the Herald News reports.
“If you could sue yourself for ineffective assistance, you’d have a dead-bang winner.” Rozak told the 53-year-old, suggesting that he might possibly have acquitted the defendant at trial, due to a weak prosecution case, if the defense had been properly handled.
“If you’d sat there, shut up and kept quiet, maybe—just maybe—my decision would’ve been different, but every hole that was in their case you filled in,” Rozak said.
Undeterred, Gold-Smith said he believed it would be in his best interest to represent himself on appeal because he knows the case best and could move it along more quickly than a public defender.
The minimum mandatory sentence for murder solicitation is 20 years, the judge said, “and you’re worried about a couple of months?”
Another hearing is scheduled later this month.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Attorney who defended himself at trial found guilty of trying to put contract hit on wife”
