{"id":6421,"date":"2004-01-12T00:34:31","date_gmt":"2004-01-12T04:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2004\/01\/12\/giving-public-defenders-a-bad"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:32","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:32","slug":"giving-public-defenders-a-bad-name-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2004\/01\/12\/giving-public-defenders-a-bad-name-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Public Defenders a Bad Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Public defenders should be outraged by the decision described in this <\/FONT>Las Vegas Sun article<\/FONT><\/A>, which reversed a murder conviction and sentence of life without parole, due to ineffective counsel.   They should be outraged, not at the 9th Circuit appellate panel, but at their colleague who did such a shameful and irresponsible job of representing a 16-year old client in State of Nevada v. Davis<\/EM>.  <\/FONT>(“Appeals Court Overturns Nevada killer’s conviction after 15 years,” by Scott Sonner, 01-08-04, as noted at <\/FONT><\/FONT>Law.com<\/FONT><\/A>., 01-12-04)<\/FONT><\/DIV>
\n
<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
\n
According to the article,”The defense lawyer did not interview any witnesses, and there is no indication the lawyer was aware that Davis had no adult criminal record, the court said. ”  The 9th Circuit panel also stated in its decision that: <\/FONT><\/DIV>
\n

    \n
  • “Defense counsel recommended<\/U> Davis stipulate to a sentence of life with no possibility of parole because, as a black defendant accused of killing a white victim, he would likely receive the death penalty<\/U>.” <\/FONT>
    \n
  • “Perhaps most egregiously, it appears from the record that defense counsel may not have been aware that Davis was only 16 years old at the time of the offense.” <\/FONT><\/FONT>
    \n
  • “Defense hastily concluded after reviewing the police report and meeting with Davis for less than two hours, that a death sentence was the most likely possibility<\/U>. <\/FONT>Remarkably, it appears as though defense counsel undertook no investigation at all into Davis’ background, the victim’s background or the credibility of witnesses who could paint Davis in a sympathetic light.  <\/FONT>It is extremely unlikely that a Nevada jury would have imposed the death penalty if the shooting were accidental and given that the victim was a drug addict killed while attempting to sell a stolen gun to Davis. Most significantly, it is extremely uncommon for 16-year-olds to receive the death penalty.” <\/FONT><\/LI><\/UL>
    \n

    \n

    The article notes that “The ruling does not name the defense lawyers who initially represented Davis.  Federal court records indicate county public defenders David Gibson [who was not immediately available for comment] and Stephen Dahl [now a judge, who said he did not directly handle Davis’ case] appeared in Clark County District Court on Davis’ behalf in 1988.” <\/FONT><\/P>
    \n

    My lack of criminal law experience keeps me silent in most criminal matters, as does the existence of webloggers who are expert in this area.   However, criminal defendants are also consumers of legal services and ethicalEsq<\/EM> can’t stifle itself this time.  I’ve often seen first hand, and have complained at this site, about the lack of diligence in Family Court matters — frequently by public defenders and assigned counsel.  But the idea of such lazy (immoral, actually) lawyering in a capital murder case even shocks skepticalEsq.  Heavy caseloads and other such excuses simply don’t begin to justify such a cavalier attitude toward the rights and well-being of a client.  I hope that bar counsel will look closely at the records of the attorneys and Office involved, to see if there was a pattern of such misconduct, and take strong disciplinary action, no matter how much time may have elapsed since the Davis <\/EM>case.<\/P><\/DIV><\/FONT><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Public defenders should be outraged by the decision described in this Las Vegas Sun article, which reversed a murder conviction and sentence of life without parole, due to ineffective counsel.   They should be outraged, not at the 9th Circuit appellate panel, but at their colleague who did such a shameful and irresponsible job of representing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1Fz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14060,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421\/revisions\/14060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}