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Death Penalty

Six Executed Inmates Lost Appeals Because Lawyers Were Late

Posted Mar 23, 2009 8:58 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Nine death-row inmates in Texas, including six who were executed, lost their appeals because their lawyers missed filing deadlines.

Two inmates had the same court-appointed lawyer, who used the same excuse for blowing the deadline in both cases, the Houston Chronicle reports. The lawyer, Jerome Godinich, said a malfunctioning filing machine caused him to file late, but 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals criticized the lawyer for relying on the device when he knew it was broken, the story says.

The Chronicle reviewed records in the nine late appeals and found that in most instances, lawyers or judges miscalculated the deadlines or misunderstood them. Other problems were due to “computer failures or human foible,” according to the article.

Lawyer Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, said courts should bar lawyers who miss habeas deadlines from taking other cases and should refer them to the bar for possible discipline. “Any decent judges would be deeply ashamed of the quality of legal representation in most capital cases in Texas,” he told the Chronicle.

Comments

1.

kennyg
Mar 23, 2009 9:37 AM CST

Another reason to get rid of the death penalty. I don’t think it deters anyway.

Maybe a lifetime penal colony type deal where they are required to do some work, farming or something, to benefit society and reduce costs.

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2.

B. McLeod
Mar 23, 2009 9:46 AM CST

Lady Catherine Parr once said, “timing is everything.”  I am sure these late inmates would agree.

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3.

tatern
Mar 23, 2009 12:15 PM CST

Does anyone know if any of these appeals were likely winners

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4.

J.D.
Mar 23, 2009 12:26 PM CST

And how many appeals have they already lost?

Tardiness creating swift justice. Oh, the irony.

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5.

K.
Mar 23, 2009 4:39 PM CST

Posters 3/4 miss the point entirely, and the point being that we’re talking about PEOPLE’S LIVES.

J.D./Tatern, would your attitude be as consoling to you if it was your life or a loved one’s life at stake?  Imagine in a hospital setting if the surgeon showed up a day late to perform the surgery, by which time the patient had already died.  “Ah, oh well,” Tatern will say, “We’ll never know if the surgery would have been successful, so who cares.”  And meanwhile, J.D. will be rejoicing at the death of the patient, saying “Yay, another needless expensive operation is avoided!  The last operation didn’t save his life, so therefore, this one would have been a waste of money, as well.”

Doesn’t seem very logical when you extend the JD/Tatern argument to a new context, does it?

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6.

Dennis.Bratcher
Mar 25, 2009 6:11 PM CST

but JD and Tatem being good lawyers will distinguish their cases from the others.;-)
Now hospitals and penitentiaries, do seek the reformation of the person (the body in one, the soul in the other), the making of a new person. Hospitals have no authority to end life as a legal consequence of what the person has done in this life.  The person in prison, if there for a capital crime, achieved legally by due process and on the road to suffering death as a consequence of their intent and deeds has received the wages of their labors.

I agree that the lawyers should be disciplined, even disbarred in capital cases.  Doing it more than once is unconscionable, or perhaps intentional.

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