Several must-read blog posts emerged recently from Houston-area criminal defense lawyers regarding court-appointed attorneys handling massive caseloads, sometimes three and four times the maximum number recommended by American Bar Association guidelines. Attorney Robb Fickman posted the
complete list of appointments from FY 2011, arguing that:
The Harris County Criminal Appointment system is controlled by the judges. It is their creation and it is a wretched creation. Favored lawyers who are known to move cases are given an obscene number of court appointments. Lawyers who work hard on cases, who do their job are given a much smaller number of cases. The result is a small group of lawyers, handling an exceedingly large number of cases. Likewise, the result is a large group of lawyers, who are competent, are not given enough cases.
Fickman does not take state appointments, he noted in the comments at Murray Newman's blog, so this isn't just sour grapes from someone who wished they got more cases. The following posts do a fine job of fleshing out the issues so rather than opine further, Grits suggests you immediately go read what lawyers on the front lines had to say:
No comments:
Post a Comment