Bureaucratic Rant
Good article at law.com following up on the Texas murder conviction that was overturned because the defendant’s lawyer slept through the original trial.
The defendant respects and works well with the attorney who successfully appealed the case. The attorney, Robert L. McGlasson, an Atlanta federal public defender, wants to be appointed to defend the defendant at his new trial.
According to the article,
Basing her decision on the Texas Fair Defense Act, which took effect in January, [the judge] said at a June 26 hearing that McGlasson wasn’t eligible for appointment because his name did not appear on the list of qualified Harris County capital defense lawyers. …
In essence, Huffman denied Burdine’s Sixth Amendment right to have counsel of his choice, says David Botsford, an Austin criminal defense attorney. “The attorney with the most knowledge of the case, the most significant knowledge of the client is being stripped off the client’s defense team,” Botsford says.
Rick Hagen, a Denton criminal defense lawyer and partner in Jackson & Hagen, believes Huffman’s interpretation of the Fair Defense Act as applied to Burdine is unconstitutional. The law “was never intended to remove counsel; it was intended to allow folks to have qualified counsel,” Hagen says.
Fron what I see in the article, I absolutely agree with the defendant’s position on this. What I don’t see is what is so wrong with the system and the bureaucrats who run it that he had to file a federal civil rights action to get a local Texas judge to do the right thing. What an incredible waste of resources.
