Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V

 I learned tonight that a former client of mine is another step closer to execution. The legal issues are complex, but what is wrong with his death sentence is not: he is quite mentally ill, and his crime was the culmination of years of physical abuse and exploitation by his parents. 

When I first met my client, I had the uneasy sense that he would be executed and that I would be shaken to my core by his execution. Mercifully, over a decade later, he lives. But my worry lives on. 

The ruling in this case came down to whether being a lawyer requires more than copying and pasting someone else's work. The federal appeal's court said that doing so is enough to count as providing counsel, at least in a death penalty case in federal habeas corpus. If my law students did that, they'd be in big trouble. Same goes for my kids. But in the Fourth Circuit, belated discovery of a copy and paste job does not warrant a second look. 

The legal issue came down to whether incredibly shabby representation--in this case copying verbatim pleadings that do not include the relevant legal arguments--amount to abandoning a client. The answer was no, in part because although the representation as "poor," there was still representation. But there's more (and it gets worse): The court held that no matter how bad the representation was, the substance of the outcome it produced could not be reconsidered. The value of excellent representation where the stakes are highest appears to be ... very little, at least in the eyes of this court. 

And lest you think this is a bunch of complaining about the process, there were real issues that competent representation would have put before the court. Two judges on the South Carolina Supreme Court dissented from his death sentence on two separate grounds. That suggests to me that at least some reasonable jurists might disagree that his death sentence passed constitutional muster. 

All-in-all, the result in this case reminds me of the classic law review article, "Counsel for the Poor: Sentenced to Death Not for the Worst Crime, but for the Worst Lawyer." Notwithstanding the high stakes of death penalty representation his counsel got a pass.

With this ruling, my client's avenues for a reprieve have further narrowed. Maybe the full federal appeal's court will hear his case. Maybe the United States Supreme Court will. Maybe there will be an act of mercy from the governor of the state. But none of these outcomes are foreordained or even likely. I worry for him.

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