How do go about finding a appeal lawyer court apt. (free) who can talk to my son about appeals.

Question

After being lock up in Santa Cruz county jail for almost 3yrs.my son now 21yrs.of age,was tried ,convicted,and sentence to 94yrs to life,second degree murder,robbery,gang enhancement.his lawyer request an appeal. Now how do i get a court apt lawyer to go and talk to my son about starting the appeal what steps to take etc.He needs to talk to a lawyer asap.,before he is shipped off to a state prison.We exhausted all moneys ($260.000)on his trial,so it would have to be free advice.?please help us get thought this nightmare.Thank you for taking time to read this.sign 21 to LIFE.....

Answer 1

You start with the California Public Defender office.  You may have one in your county, START there.  It is likely a regional or state office within that division that would handle the case.

A public defender is routinely appointed for (at least) first level appeals, where there was a public defender at the trial level.  In this case, you must notify that office that you need their assistance.

Remember, it is the assets of the client, not the family, which are calculated to ensure that he is indigent.  Since he has no job (in prison), has no assets, it should be easy.

Also, you and your son should be aware of something very important.  In most appeals, there will not be much contact between the attorney and the client.  The reason ... the client cannot help much for an appeal.  What really happened, his version of the crime, etc., are irrelevant.  What is important is whether or not the client received a fair trial.  And THAT is determined by the record (pleadings, filings, and transcripts).  If it is not in the record, you cannot base your appeal on that issue.  So, the question is really ... what does the record show, and how can that equate to a new trial.

Also, as indicated above, the effort of the appellate attorney will be to get a new trial, NOT to get a reversal (acquittal).  What the appellate lawyer tries to show is that, as a result of the errors OF THE JUDGE, the defendant did not receive a fair trial.

Finally, the last bastion ... ineffective assistance of counsel.  Here, client assistance can help.  If you can show that the attorney feiled to provide the minimum (very low standard) representation required at law, you can sometimes get a new trial.  Unfortnunately, almost EVER appeal argues ineffective assistance of counsel.  I say unfortunately, because it is so common that judges really do not pay it much attention.  So many frivolous claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are raised that judges really do not take them seriously any more.

There have been some very good ineffective assistance of counsel cases rendered (in death penalty) cases recently, but the fact is, when attorneys cannot find an error by the judge, they blame the trial lawyer.

Even if you truly believe the defense attorney was bad, the burden (Strickland case) is to show that BUT FOR the errors by counsel, the result WOULD HAVE been different.

Now, if you look at the strickland case (Strickland v. Washington), the supreme court seems to set a lower standard.  Later cases, however, have made it clear that even if the attorney made serious professional errors, the case will not be reversed EXCEPT for the aggregious case where the jury verdict would probably have been different (burden shifts to defendant to show a differnt result would have occurerd).  As examples, appellate and US Supreme court have found harmless errors despite attorney being drunk at trial, attorney sleeping through trial, and attorney showing up late for trial while the most important witnesse was testifying.

So what?  So ... the strongest arguments are usually that the Judge made a mistake of law, which mandates a new trial.  The strongest arguments for reversal are the mundane -- using the wrong jury instruction (so the jury did not properly consider the law) can result in nearly automatic reversal.

My point is that, unlike trial preparation, where the client can expect to actively participate, a defendant cannot really help his attorney much (except on the ineffective counsel allegations), and not much contact can reasonably be expected.

Finally, it is very (VERY) important that you act very quickly.  The deadlines for appeal can be JURISDICTIONAL.  IN other words, if an appeal is not started on time, it is waived forever.

Good luck