Public Defenders to Jack Conway: Fuck You

So Jack "an invisible sky wizard does too run the Department of Homeland Security!" Conway, sucking wind in the U.S Senate primary, runs up to the podium waving his arms and yelling "oooh, oooh, I've got it - let's kill these guys!"

About a minute and a half later, the lawyers at the Department of Public Advocacy - where they do actual courtroom law protecting the Rule of Law, the Bill of Rights and oh, yeah, people's lives and liberty - announced "Not so fast, Fry-Boy."

From the Herald-Leader:

Attorney General Jack Conway wants Gov. Steve Beshear to set execution dates for three men on Death Row.

In a statement, Conway said that Ralph Baze Jr., Robert C. Foley and Gregory L. Wilson had exhausted all of their appeals and it was time for the families of their victims to have closure.

"Each has exhausted all of their 'matter of right' appeals in state and federal courts," Conway said, including reviews by the Kentucky Supreme Court and a federal habeas corpus review. "There are no remaining legal impediments to the finality of these death sentences," he said.

"The horrific crimes these men committed have taken an enormous toll on the victims’ families, for whom this may bring closure," he said.

Public Advocacy's response:

Public Advocate Ed Monahan and Louisville Metro Chief Public Defender Dan Goyette call for a moratorium on executions in Kentucky until the American Bar Association (ABA) objectively reviews the fairness, accuracy and reliability of Kentucky’s system for imposing and administering the death penalty. Today, Goyette and Monahan sent a request to the Governor asking that he not sign any execution warrant while the study is being conducted and a similar request to the Attorney General asking that he withdraw his three requests for execution warrants he made today until the review is completed and the ABA Assessment Team issues its report.

Public Defenders are appointed to represent the vast majority of those who are currently on Kentucky’s death row. Defenders play a critical role in ensuring full due process of law for their clients. There are individuals on death row who are severely mentally ill, who had lawyers that were ineffective, and who had trials in which serious errors occurred that remain uncorrected.

“There are serious and disturbing questions about the convictions of a number of inmates facing execution, particularly in those cases that were tried years ago by unqualified lawyers lacking adequate resources,” Dan Goyette said. “We should not proceed with executions until this independent evaluation is completed and we are assured that due process has been fully and properly provided in each and every case. To do otherwise would cast significant doubt on the fairness and propriety of imposing the ultimate punishment. We all have a fundamental responsibility to avoid at all costs the possibility of making an unjust and irreversible mistake.”

Since 1967 Kentucky has executed three people (two were volunteers) and three KY Governors have granted clemency to five people sentenced to death. Since 1976, 92 death sentences have been returned in Kentucky state courts. Currently, there are 35 people on KY’s death row. Of the 50 KY capital cases that have exhausted review by the Kentucky Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, 42 have been reversed.

“The error rate in KY capital cases over the last 33 years is stunning and unacceptably high,” said Ed Monahan. “It is compelling evidence that indicates the system is broken. This excessive rate of error shows that the system cannot get it right. A moratorium will prevent the execution of an individual whose conviction and death sentence has been imposed by an unfair and arbitrary system.”

The ABA Assessment Team has begun the process of reviewing the way the death penalty in Kentucky has been administered in light of established national standards. A number of other respected Kentucky lawyers have today also called for a moratorium while this study is underway.

Read the whole thing.

Kentucky Innocence Project Exonerates Man Wrongly Convicted

The most overworked, underpaid, unappreciated lawyers in the Commonwealth are the only thing standing between you and a medieval INjustice system.

An order has been signed by a Jefferson Circuit Court Judge vacating the conviction of Edwin A. Chandler for charges stemming from the robbery and murder of a convenient store clerk in 1993. Mr. Chandler was convicted by a jury in 1995 and received a sentence of 30 years. He was incarcerated for nine years before he was released on parole.

Mr. Chandler has maintained his innocence since his arrest in 1993. Fingerprints left on a beer bottle, alleged by the prosecution to have been handled by the perpetrator, were not Mr. Chandler’s. Furthermore, hairs taken from a stocking mask purportedly discarded by the robber, did not match Mr. Chandler’s. The photos recovered from a surveillance tape, a tape erased by the police prior to trial, did not look like Mr. Chandler; and an eyewitness told the jury Mr. Chandler was not the person he saw. Mr. Chandler was convicted on the basis of a statement he gave to the police; a statement he told the courts from the beginning, was coerced.

The Kentucky Innocence Project agreed to investigate his case with the hope technological advancements would help with the hair and fingerprint analysis. While the retesting of the hair did not bear any fruit, the fingerprints taken off the bottle yielded a match to someone already incarcerated in the state on a violent felony. Based on this fingerprint match and additional interviews of the eyewitnesses, Mr. Chandler has been cleared of this crime.

Following the announcement of the exoneration, Public Advocate Ed Monahan, said: “National reports indicate between 4%-10% of the people incarcerated in this country are innocent. Our system must ensure that only guilty people are punished. We are not adequately doing that. Mr. Chandler’s case illustrates the need for common sense reform. Implementing a requirement of video taping confessions, a simple reform already adopted in 500 other jurisdictions, could have prevented this grave injustice.”

Marguerite Neill Thomas, Mr. Chandler’s attorney and the Director of the Kentucky Innocence Project, expressed her relief for Mr. Chandler and his family. Ms. Thomas said, “While it took a slight summer breeze to convict Mr. Chandler, it took a perfect storm to clear his name.” She acknowledged the work of the Chase Law School student who worked on the case, the staff of the Innocence Project who identified the name of the actual perpetrator for the police and were persistent in having the case heard, and to Sergeant Butler of the Louisville Metro Police Department for his diligence in righting this wrong.

The Kentucky Innocence Project is a program of the Department of Public Advocacy established in 2000 to review claims of actual innocence. Students from Chase College of Law and the University of Kentucky College of Law worked with the Kentucky Innocence Project to investigate the cases. To date the Project has been responsible for the release of nine people. Information about these cases is here.

Because of this established program and proven track record, the Kentucky Innocence Project received a significant grant from the Federal Department of Justice to help investigate claims of innocence that specifically involve testing DNA evidence.

The Department of Public Advocacy is Kentucky’s statewide public defender program providing full-time representation to indigent defendants in all 120 counties in over 148,000 cases a year.

No Lawyer For You!

Unless you've got a hundred grand stashed away in a private lawyer fund, better watch your ass.

Catastrophic budget cuts are forcing Kentucky's public defenders to refuse all but the most serious cases.

In a letter to judges released Wednesday, public advocate Ernie Lewis warned that public defenders will begin refusing certain types of cases starting July 1 as a result of the $2.3 million budget cut approved this spring by the General Assembly.

Lewis said the Department of Public Advocacy cannot afford to fill about 40 vacancies. With caseloads already at unethically high levels, Lewis said, public defenders cannot take on additional cases.

"The dilemma that now exists is that the Commonwealth of Kentucky is obligated to provide counsel to poor people charged with crimes, but the legislature has failed to fund that obligation," Lewis wrote. "DPA will assert that the solution to this is for courts to enter orders requiring the Commonwealth to pay for private counsel."

Public defenders will continue to represent poor people charged with felonies, but will reject a huge swath of lower-profile cases.

If you need but can't afford a lawyer to help you get a restraining order against an abuser, or stop your landlord from evicting you, or defend yourself against false charges that could land you in jail for a year, you're shit out of luck.

Lewis warned judges of several service cuts, the first since 1991, that will begin July 1:

• Funding will be eliminated for contract lawyers for 3,000 to 5,000 conflict-of-interest cases. These are cases in which there is more than one defendant; the DPA contracts with other lawyers so it is not representing both clients.

• The DPA will stop representing family court cases, which involve domestic violence and failure to pay child support.

• The DPA will withdraw from status offender cases, those involving children charged with running away from home, unable to be controlled by their parents or being truant.

• It will pull out of civil commitment cases, in which the state is trying to force a mentally ill person into an institution.

• It will refuse Class B misdemeanors (crimes with punishment of no more than six months in jail), some Class A misdemeanors (which carry punishment of up to one yea in jail) and probation and parole violations.

The DPA employs 350 lawyers and handled 148,518 cases last year.

Denying basic Constitutional rights to everyone who's not rich and powerful is a long-standing republican tactic, of course, but in this case, the governor whose budget incorporated these unconscionable cuts is Steve Beshear.

Democrat.

Shame on you, sir.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.