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Poor representation in capital cases rewarded with new appointments

With judges now fully empowered, according to the 5th Circuit, to exclude attorneys they don't believe are qualified, there seems to be little excuse for tolerating the kind of attorney performance described by Lise Olsen in a Houston Chronicle piece this morning, "Death row lawyers get paid while messing up," April 20):Texas lawyers have repeatedly missed deadlines for appeals on behalf of more than a dozen death row inmates in the last two years ? yet judges continue to assign life-or-death capital cases and pay hundreds of thousands in fees to those attorneys, a Chronicle records review shows.Missing deadlines means their clients can be automatically denied constitutionally mandated reviews before their execution. Houston lawyer Jerome Godinich missed three recent federal deadlines, the Chronicle reported in March...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on April 20, 2009 (boomark / email).