Indefensible defenders



For life-and-death appeals, Texas can’t tolerate sloppy lawyers

Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
April 25, 2009, 12:20AM

Capital punishment puts the “dead” in deadline: If a defense lawyer 
files an appeal late, his client can automatically lose his last 
chance to avoid execution. This past week Chronicle reporter Lise 
Olsen documented cases in which Texas lawyers repeatedly blew those 
life-or-death deadlines. Nothing much happened to those lawyers. 
Usually they were paid for their lousy work and continued to receive 
more court appointments.

Consider Houston lawyer Jerome Godinich, who’s missed three — 
count’em, three — federal deadlines in capital cases. For two of 
those he used the same excuse: that the courthouse’s antiquated after-
hours filing machine wasn’t working. That explanation seemed limp the 
first time Godinich used it, since most lawyers file after-hours 
appeals electronically from their office computers. So how dumb does 
a lawyer have to be to make the same mistake a second time?

And more to the point: How does a lawyer with that track record 
continue to get work with life-or-death consequences? It’s because 
quality control is left to the individual judges who make 
appointments. And each judge doesn’t have time to track lawyers’ 
performance in other courts.

The Texas Legislature is considering a measure to fix part of this 
problem. Senate Bill 1091 and its companion, House Bill 3580, would 
establish a statewide public defender office for capital appeals. 
Though the office wouldn’t handle federal appeals, it would at least 
cover those in state courts.

And that’s a good start. When it comes to execution, the condemned 
doesn’t get a second chance. Lame lawyers shouldn’t, either.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/6391568.html