Much of what we report is legal malpractice, and that almost always deals with money. What did plaintiff lose? How much was plaintiff required to pay? What are the attorney fees? Why is plaintiff liable to pay an attorney some money? All important questions, and often they tell of a subtext of injury, divorce, disenfranchisement, and sadness. Rarely, however, does legal malpractice result in death.
Yet, it can happen. Pro bono capital crimes representation is a lovely act, and many innocent prisoners have benefited from Project Innocence and other similar programs. Many of the big NY firms do criminal pro bono work, and they extol it on their web sites. Here, is the flip side. Associate attorneys working for Sullivan & Cromwell take on a pro bono case, and then as the years go by, they move on to other firms. What happens to the case?
Today’s Law,Com answers the question, in the US Supreme Court. "Alabama death row inmate Cory Maples, who lost his chance to bring a critical appeal because of a mailroom snafu in a New York law firm, may be getting a second chance from the U.S. Supreme Court.
In fast-paced arguments on Tuesday that delved into the obligations of lawyers representing criminal defendants, all of the justices, with the exceptions of Justice Antonin Scalia and a silent Justice Clarence Thomas, appeared concerned about the predicament in which Maples finds himself and skeptical of the state’s arguments that they should do nothing about it.
Maples, sentenced to death for the 1995 murders of two men, was represented pro bono in his state post-conviction appeal by two associates at New York’s Sullivan & Cromwell. As required by Alabama rules at the time, the two lawyers associated themselves with a local attorney, John Butler, in order to be admitted to practice in the state. Although the rules required Butler to be jointly and severally responsible for the case, he claimed his only role was to secure the New York attorneys’ admission.
The three attorneys filed a state post-conviction petition for Maples in which they raised ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims. After 18 months, the trial judge denied the petition, and then Maples’ problems began.
The court clerk sent notices of the denial order to the two associates and Butler. The associates, however, had left the firm for other jobs and failed to inform Maples or the court that they no longer represented him. Neither they nor Marc De Leeuw, the partner who worked with the associates, filed a substitution of counsel form. The firm’s mailroom returned the denial notices to the court clerk marked "return to sender" and "left firm." Butler did nothing with his notice, assuming the associates were handling the case. Maples actually learned of the denial and the missed appeal deadline when the prosecutor sent him a letter alerting him that the time for filing a federal habeas petition was close to expiring. He contacted his stepmother, who then contacted Sullivan & Cromwell. De Leeuw and Butler scrambled to ask the trial court to reissue its denial order so they could file an out-of-time appeal, but their motion was denied as was a request to the state criminal appeals court.
"