DIPY WRONG again
Justice system is as good as the people running it.
Trials actually put the innocents in death row or to death
Hearye hearye Kangaroo court is in session---JPR
Extract:
"It's like a match between Mike Tyson and Martin Short," she said, "and the referee -- the judge -- is
on Tyson's payroll."
siliconinvestor.com
To: JPR who wrote (10342)
From: Dipy
Sunday, Dec 26, 1999 10:51 AM ET
Reply # of 10623
There is no excuse for not holding a trial. See if you can come up with one. The people who were involved in the Trade Center were given the opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law. They were not just put in prison and allowed to rot for 5 years. That is the difference between a genuine democracy like the US and a pretender like India.
Shoddy Defense by Lawyers Puts Innocents on Death Row
nytimes.com
Related Article
Justices Block an Execution in Alabama's Electric Chair
By DIRK JOHNSON
CHICAGO, Feb. 4 -- As Illinois examines what went wrong with a
justice system that sent 13 innocent men to death row, one
common thread has already emerged: poorly financed, often incompetent
defense lawyers who failed to uncover and present crucial evidence.
The mistakes go far beyond the 13.
In one case, a defense lawyer failed to prepare any strategy for his client
at the death penalty hearing the day after the conviction, saying he had
been hoping that the jury would opt for manslaughter charges.
Another defense lawyer rambled so incoherently during a death penalty
trial that the proceeding "would border on the comical if only it were
make-believe," a State Supreme Court justice wrote.
A third lawyer failed to attend some critical hearings, arrived late at
others and neglected to call witnesses who had volunteered to testify
about a defendant's character.
"The legal defense for death row inmates has simply been inadequate,"
said Elisabeth Semel, who heads an American Bar Association project
that focuses on legal representation for people facing the death penalty.
Other legal experts add that the situation in Illinois is mirrored in many
other states.
It is not surprising that opponents of the death penalty criticize the legal
system for failing to provide adequate defenses. But in Illinois, the same
criticism is now being offered by some supporters of executions, many of
whom now back Gov. George Ryan's decision this week to place a
moratorium on implementation of the death penalty until a panel can study
it.
The governor, a moderate Republican who supports the death penalty,
announced the moratorium after new evidence cleared 13 men who had
been convicted and sent to death row since 1977.
In supporting the governor's decision, Mayor Richard M. Daley of
Chicago, who prosecuted some of the death penalty cases as Cook
County state's attorney in the 1980's, said the defense lawyers in some of
those cases were incompetent, and even when they were competent,
they often did not have the money to conduct their own thorough
investigations and compete against the police and prosecutors.
Not all the cases involved questions of poor defense work. Some
resulted in accusations of overly aggressive police officials and
prosecutorial misconduct.
But it is striking that in three cases, college students working on class
projects at Northwestern University were able to find evidence that had
escaped the attention of defense lawyers.
While a proper defense in a death penalty case takes months of research
and costs $250,000 or more, Ms. Semel said, defendants in these cases
are often represented by lawyers who are paid a few thousand dollars, or
less, and spend only two days on a case.
Separate hearings in each case determine whether a defendant should be
executed, and that adds to the cost.
Unable to afford good legal help, the families of defendants often settle, in
desperation, for any lawyer who will take a case, regardless of
reputation. The results are not surprising. A Chicago Tribune examination
of death penalty cases found that 33 defendants sentenced to die were
represented by a lawyer who has been disbarred or suspended.
The fate of these inmates, in some cases, depends on volunteers
unearthing evidence, or just plain luck.
Richard G. Younge, 75, the lawyer who failed to prepare a strategy for
the death penalty hearing for his client, had never handled a death penalty
case. Mr. Younge said he was unaware that the hearing would come only
a day after the conviction. A state judge voided the sentence.
Earl Washington, the lawyer who missed some hearings and arrived late
to others, had taken the case of Bernon Howrey, of Kankakee, for a flat
$8,000 fee.
The closing argument of George Pease, a defense lawyer in the case of a
suburban Chicago man sentenced to death, was described by a federal
judge as "a rambling, incoherent discourse." The defendant was ultimately
resentenced to 60 years in prison.
While a spotlight has been cast on the Illinois system, accounts have
emerged from around the nation of defense lawyers who slept through
trials, or came to court drunk. Courts have assigned death penalty cases
to lawyers, like those specializing in tax law, who have never tried a
criminal case. And for many of the decent, hardworking lawyers who
take death penalty cases, the money paid by poor families is generally so
paltry that paying for a thorough investigation is impossible.
"You get these families who go shopping for a lawyer with, say, $10,000,
which seems like all the money in the world to them," said Lawrence
Marshall, a law professor who heads the Center on Wrongful
Convictions at Northwestern University. "A good lawyer will tell them it
can't possibly be done for that money. So they keep looking, until they
find someone who will take the case. It's usually a down-on-the-luck
lawyer who figures the case is probably going to plead anyway, so it's a
quick $10,000."
Seymour Simon, a former Illinois Supreme Court justice and longtime foe
of the death penalty, said he believed the poor legal representation for
defendants made the death penalty unjust.
The Illinois Supreme Court in 1982 denied an appeal of a death sentence
that was made on the grounds of incompetent legal representation -- only
to turn to a case weeks later on the disbarment of the lawyer, Archie
Weston, who had represented the condemned man, Dennis Williams.
"He was accused of looting an estate," Justice Simon said of the lawyer.
"We asked him why he had missed a disciplinary hearing. He said at the
time he was so stressed out he couldn't think straight."
As it turned out, Mr. Weston had been representing the death row
defendant at the time. A new trial was ordered, which resulted in another
conviction. The case was one of the 13 cited by Governor Ryan.
Ultimately, DNA evidence proved Mr. Williams innocent of two murder
charges. He was freed in 1996 after spending 18 years in prison.
The wrongful conviction cost Cook County nearly $13 million in
damages to Mr. Williams.
Lawmakers have recently cited the accounts of such mistakes and poor
legal representation in calling for changes to federal execution law.
Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said it seemed
obvious that mistakes caught in Illinois were occurring in other states.
But while concerns have grown over poor legal representation and
mistaken convictions, laws in recent years have nonetheless cut legal aid
for defendants who cannot afford their own lawyers.
In 1996, Congress eliminated spending for the 20 Death Penalty
Resource Centers, which existed to help mount the appeals of death row
inmates, who are usually poor.
In Florida, there has been little effort to improve legal help for poor
defendants, even though 20 wrongful convictions resulted in inmates
being sent to death row -- the most in the nation. Lawmakers in Florida
recently enacted a so-called fast-track system that shortens times for
appeals for inmates sentenced to die.
Poor people charged with serious crimes have been entitled to legal
assistance since the Gideon v. Wainwright decision in 1963. But that aid
varies sharply among the states.
Even prosecutors acknowledge that defense lawyers typically start at a
disadvantage when they go up against experienced prosecutors. Richard
Devine, the state's attorney in Cook County, noted that his office has 300
lawyers.
"By the time someone is trying a capital case, they have had a lot of
experience," Mr. Devine said.
Ms. Semel used a boxing analogy to describe the disparity in resources
and experience between prosecutors and defense lawyers in most death
penalty cases.
"It's like a match between Mike Tyson and Martin Short," she said, "and the referee -- the judge -- is on Tyson's payroll." |
